The Rear View Mirror
by dragonmactir
Summary: Provides the backstory for my other ongoing, "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." Whumpy. Lassiter as a child. Just so you know, does not include any pairings. At all. Juliet hasn't even been born yet. Shawn is two. Shules does not exist yet, but neither can Lassiet. So just chill.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish."

* * *

**Wild West Show**

"Hey! Drop your weapon and come peaceably."

"Well, Sheriff, I ain't exactly a peaceful man."

The two men stared each other down across the dusty street. The man in the black hat reached for his gun, but the sheriff in his white hat was faster. His 1873 Colt Peacemaker let out an authoritative bang and the man in the black hat flew back and landed in the dirt. The sheriff twirled his gun and holstered it. The tourists applauded politely.

The boy with the bright blue eyes blinked once, for the first time since well before the showdown started, and then sidled towards the blacksmith's shop. The sheriff turned around, prepared to walk back into his office and forget about the tourists until the next show, until he spotted the boy. He didn't often make note of tourists, particularly children, but he noticed something odd about the boy straight off.

He was _alone._

No anxious mother called out to him not to wander off. No father took his hand or hoisted him onto his shoulders. No, the little boy with the dark hair and the bright eyes was completely on his own, and he didn't seem weepy like a child who'd been separated accidentally. He was just poking around Old Sonora like alone was his natural condition, and it made Sheriff Hank Mendel more than a little unnerved to see it.

Still, it was none of his business. Most likely the boy's folks were somewhere about, surely.

Surely.

Sheriff Hank entered his office and sat down at the table inside, prepared to forget all about the strange little boy as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire. He didn't see the boy when he went out again the next hour to shoot down the town villain once more, and he put the last of his worries aside then. It wasn't uncommon for youngsters to roam about Old Sonora while their parents stayed in the saloon. That was all it was. He didn't know why he was left with an uncomfortable certainty, deep in his heart, that the little boy he'd seen had been more profoundly on his own than that.

"Hank? Hank! Hank!" The desk clerk from Old Sonora's one small hotel ran up the street toward him.

"What is it?" Hank asked.

"We've, uh…got a 'situation' at the hotel."

Hank started walking that direction. "What kind of situation?"

"It's…uh…just kind of…_weird," _the clerk said. "I left him there with Miss Chelsie."

"Left _who_ with Miss Chelsie?" Hank asked, with what he felt was remarkable patience.

"The…the, uh…the boy."

Hank stopped dead in his tracks. "Little boy, ten, maybe eleven years old? Dark hair, some kind a' _damn _blue eyes?"

"You've seen him, then."

Hank resumed walking toward the hotel. "I seen 'im. What kind of devilry is he up to?"

"He wants a room for the night," the clerk said.

Hank stopped again. "What's wrong with that?" he asked.

"Well, Hank, he's…uh…_alone._ No parents."

Hank started walking again. "I'll talk to 'im, see what's up."

Hank entered the hotel. The lobby was small, and Miss Chelsie took up most of it. She wasn't inordinately fat, only on the chunky side, but her voluminous skirts made up the difference, along with her rather monumental breasts that spilled out over the tight corset she wore, just this side of totally indecent. Miss Chelsie was just an actress, but she took her role as one of the town's prostitutes more seriously than most. She was always to be found flirting with male tourists, and right now she had her attention fixed on the underdeveloped specimen at her side who was pointedly looking anywhere but at her.

"Oh hey, Sweetie-britches, here's Hank. He'll sort this mess out," she said in her lazy drawl. She tweaked one of the boy's slightly overlarge ears and he jerked away from her. "Take it easy on the kid, Hank. He's a little cutie-patootie."

"What seems to be the problem here?" Hank asked, with his thumbs under his belt. He looked down at the boy and tried to size him up, but found he couldn't. There was something off about the kid, and he didn't know what it was.

"I just want to rent a room, that's all," the boy said. "I've got money, and the sign out front said there's a vacancy."

"Where's yer folks, young'un?" Hank asked.

The boy's blue eyes shifted and he shuffled uncomfortably. "What do you mean?" he asked, as if stalling for time.

"Yer _Momma an' Poppa. _They in town? Maybe at the saloon?"

The boy shook his head.

"Then where are they?" Hank asked.

"I don't know. Mom dropped me off this morning, said she'd pick me up tomorrow afternoon. She gave me money, told me to get a room here."

Hank squatted down in front of the boy so they were at eye-level with each other. "You ain't tellin' a fib, are ya?" he said. "Yer Momma dropped you off; you didn't run away from home?"

"_I _don't run away!" the little boy said, in clear outrage at the very suggestion.

Hank held up his hands placatingly. "All right, okay. You didn't run away. Where's home, young'un, an' how far away from it are ya?"

The boy looked at him consideringly for a long moment, then reluctantly said, "Santa Barbara. Sir."

"A fair stretch from here. How old are you, young'un?"

"Eleven."

"Mighty young to be runnin' around on yer lonesome. Tell me exactly what happened today. Was this a planned trip, or did it take you by surprise?"

The boy's eyes, blue as the skies on the bluest of days, opened wider, and Hank saw deep down in them the slightest flicker of what might have been fear, and he realized that was what was off about the boy. He radiated lots of emotions - embarrassment, suspicion, frustration - but before that moment there hadn't been the slightest whiff of fear about him.

"It…it…it was kind of a surprise," the boy said, mumbling now.

"Have you ever been here before?" Hank asked.

"No, Sir."

"Tell me how it came about, Sonny. Don't be scared."

There was more than just a flicker of fear in those blue, blue eyes now. Hank wondered just what the kid was thinking about.

"Mama works all week," the boy said at last, still not speaking in much more than a mumble. "I look after Geena and Lincoln - my little brother and sister - while she works. They don't…they don't mind me real well, but I do my best."

"I bet you do. It's a lot of responsibility, bein' the Big Brother," Hank said, with a smile he hoped was reassuring. The boy blushed.

"Anyway, Mama has weekends off. And today, well…Geena was all upset over something she wanted to do that Mama wouldn't let her do. She's ten, but she doesn't look after herself very well. If Mama let her run off to play with her friends by themselves Geena would get herself kidnapped or something even worse. I tried to explain it to her, and promised I'd take her out to play later after I got my homework done, but she wouldn't stop pitching a fit. And Lincoln…well, he's just five, and can't really help being a pain in the rump at all times. He made everything worse by copying Geena's crying and screaming, in between trying to run out into the street and get himself run over by cars. He's always doing that. Running into the street, I mean. Kid has a death wish. So I'm trying to do my homework and I'm trying to shut Geena up and I'm trying to keep Lincoln from killing himself, and Mama's on the couch with a headache, and the house is louder than a machine shop and finally, just when I've gotten to the point where I sat on Lincoln and put my hand over Geena's mouth, Mama jumps up off the couch and shouts 'I can't take it anymore!' Then she gives me a big hug and tells me to get my homework, and she piles us all in the car and drives us here."

"So there's two more little ones runnin' 'round here?" Hank asked in alarm.

"No, Sir. Mama didn't let them out of the car. Just…just me." The boy took a deep breath in and let it out in a rush of words. "She said she's picking me up tomorrow but what if she just leaves me here I mean I was trying to keep everything under control it's not my fault I can't always shut those two up Mama wouldn't just dump me…would she?"

"Calm down, young'un, I'm sure she'll be back for ya," Hank said, and hoped mightily that was true. "Tell me, though - what are you doin' with homework in the middle of summer?"

The boy grimaced. "Gramma was a schoolteacher 'til she retired. She makes me do book reports all summer long, and she makes me do them over and over until she'd give me an A on them, too."

"Just you? Not the other two?"

"They're not dyslexic, Sir," the little boy said.

"So you have a hard time with regular schoolwork," Hank said. "Gramma's tryin' to help you."

"Yes, Sir."

"Where's yer Poppa while all this was goin' on today?" Hank asked.

The little boy's face twisted up into the most remarkable expression of disgust. "He's in jail again," he said, almost as though he spit the words out onto the floor.

Hank sighed and stood up. He reached out and clapped a hand to the boy's back, but the boy winced away from the contact, gentle as it was. Hank's brow furrowed in concern.

"What's the matter, young'un? That hurt?" he asked.

"N-n-n-no, Sir," the boy said, too wide-eyed.

"Yes, it did," Hank said. "I can see for myself it did. What's wrong with yer back?"

"Nothing, Sir, I swear."

"You got a lousy poker face, kid. Pull up yer shirt, let me see."

The boy rolled his eyes and sighed deeply, but did as commanded. On his narrow back were a number of livid black bruises and red welts, some of which looked like they were made by hands and some of which looked like they were made by a belt.

"Lord a' Mercy, boy, who whopped you so bad?" Hank asked. The boy tugged his shirttails down and made something of a production of tucking them back in his slacks.

"Nobody, Sir. It's nothing. He's in jail."

"Oh Lordy, Hank, his Daddy did it," Miss Chelsie said, with a groan.

"It's no big deal. It doesn't hurt," the boy insisted. "Daddy gets drunk, he gets mean. Sometimes he tries to beat on Mama, but I won't let him. It's not right to hit a lady. And I'm dang sure not going to let him beat on Geena or Lincoln."

Miss Chelsie threw her hands in the air. "So you think it's all right for him to beat on _you? _Honey child, he shouldn't be putting his hands on nobody!"

"I know that, but better me than Geena or Lincoln. It's no big deal. I can take it. I'm tough," the little boy said. "Mama calls me her little Spartan." He said this last with obvious pride, but then deflated somewhat when he remembered he wasn't sure whether his Mama had abandoned him or not.

"What are we gonna do, Hank?" the desk clerk asked.

"Well, for one thing, we're gonna rent the boy a room for the night," Hank said. "His Momma'll be here tomorrow like she promised. We'll just look out for him 'til then."

"I'll look after 'im," Miss Chelsie said. She grabbed the boy's head and pressed him against her enormous, satin-clad bosom. "He's a cutie-patootie."

The boy squirmed out of her hold and smoothed back his mussed hair. His face was as red as a fire engine. "Thank you, Ma'am, but I really need to do my homework. I was just going to spend the rest of the day in the hotel room working on it. I don't need to be babysat."

"Will it take you all the rest of today to get yer homework done?" Hank asked.

"Well…no. The report is written, I'm just checking it over. For spelling errors, that kind of thing. Gramma is real nit-picky about spelling. Well, it kinda goes to figure, I suppose, but sometimes I wish she'd cut me just a little slack about it. I usually put in all the right letters, I just don't always get them all in exactly the right order. But I'm big enough to look after myself. I won't be any trouble. I'll just stay in the room."

"Oo! I'll spellcheck it!" Miss Chelsie said, excitedly. "I'm a good speller. I won a ribbon in the annual spelling bee back home."

"I don't doubt yer a good speller, Miss Chelsie," Hank said, with a smile crinkling up the corners of his eyes, "but I think you make the boy a mite uncomfortable, maybe because you keep callin' 'im 'cutie-patootie.' Or because yer dressed as a hooker."

"Little bit of both," the boy said.

Hank laughed and ruffled the boy's hair. The boy smoothed it out again immediately, but his shy smile indicated he didn't mind the messing.

"Tell you what, kiddo; you finish up yer homework an' come meet me at the Sheriff's Office up the street. We'll figger out somethin' to do more fun than hangin' 'round in a hotel room all the rest a' the afternoon," Hank said.

The boy blushed again. "That's okay, Sir. I don't need babysitting."

"Didn't say I was gonna babysit ya. Gets awful dull sittin' 'round between shootouts. Might be nice to have someone t' talk to. Maybe we could play some poker."

"I don't know how to play poker, Sir."

"Well, then, I'll teach ya," Hank said.

The boy wanted to say yes, Hank could tell, but something was holding him back. There was still an air of suspicion surrounding him, but mostly, from the look deep in those sky blue eyes, it was a simple disinclination to make a pest of himself for the adults. Hank thought this was a boy who preferred to be invisible to grownups as much as possible.

"Come on, kid," Hank said. "Whaddaya say?"

A faint flicker in those big eyes heralded a chink in the wall this young man had already built tall and strong around his heart. "If you're sure I won't be a bother, Sir," he said, in a very quiet voice.

"If you're afraid you'll be a bother, I'll happily throw you in jail for a couple a' hours. Then you won't be able to be," Hank said. "We can play poker through the bars."

The boy laughed and ducked his head to hide his quick grin. "Okay," he said.

The desk clerk set the boy up with the key to room three, and the boy zipped out of the hotel to where he'd left his homework sitting in the lee of the apothecary building. He returned to the hotel and went up to his room, where he ran through the proofreading of his book report with a speed he'd never before achieved. It still took him the better part of forty-five minutes, and he caught three spelling errors that his grandmother would have taken him to task over. He carefully recopied the report onto fresh paper and prayed that he hadn't made any new spelling mistakes because his eyes and brain hurt and he didn't want to reread the new copy for errors. He would hand his grandmother the report after Sunday dinner, assuming he hadn't been abandoned here, and there was not a chance in hell she would not give him another assignment at that time. This week she'd made him read _The Great Gatsby. _Next week it could be _Ulysses _or _Moby Dick_. Something difficult for an _ordinary _eleven year old to read and comprehend, let alone a dyslexic, and woe be unto him if he didn't have the report ready to hand in after Sunday dinner like always. Gramma wasn't a proponent of the belt, like his father, but she had a fondness for wooden rulers that was almost as painful.

The effect of this training was giving him a tremendous early grounding in classic literature that would come in handy when he entered high school and carry him well into college as well, but it was also making him hate the act of reading, which was reduced to a kind of torture. The only book his grandmother had made him read that he'd actually enjoyed was _White Fang, _and he felt great sympathy for the main character, even though it was not human. He had his own Beauty Smiths in his life, and hoped someday to find a home of peace like the wolf at last did. Like White Fang, he knew he would gladly lay down his life for that home, and that family. _His_ family. The family he would choose for himself.

Even at eleven, some small part of himself knew that he was being forged in a manner that would make it difficult to relate to that family, just as it was difficult for White Fang. He knew next to nothing of gentleness or kindness. His father was outright abusive but his mother wasn't much better. She kept her hands off of him but her tongue was sharp and her voice was loud. Gramma, her mother, was much the same, with the exception of the rulers. The women loved him, and he knew it, but they were bad at showing it. He'd long since given up the hope that his father loved him in any small way, though on the rare occasions the man was sober and _around_ he was almost tolerable. His mother had told him once that his father, dead sober, could charm a nun out of her habit and her vow of celibacy. He didn't quite know what that meant, but he'd never seen much sign of any charm in his father himself. He sometimes wished he could. Mostly he was just grateful for all the times his father wasn't around, like when he was in jail.

Like now.

It was bookmaking this time around. Usually it was for things like disturbing the peace, public intoxication, driving under the influence, assault. Sooner or later they were going to get sick of constantly arresting him and throw him in jail forever. The boy wouldn't be sorry when that happened. The times his father spent in jail stood out in his memory as oases of peace compared to the times he was home. No one was beaten and his mother was only half as loud and maybe a third as vicious. There would be time before they let him out again for the bruises from this latest beating to fade, though the memory was doubtless indelible.

The boy sat where he was for a long moment, not thinking about his father or his mother or anything except the report he'd just rewritten and the sheriff's offer of a game of poker. He had a learning disability but he was far from stupid. He knew he was being babysat. No adult would willingly spend time with him. But he'd seen his father play poker with his loud, beery friends and it…it looked like it might be kind of fun. He hoped it wasn't hard to learn. Adults were, in his experience, impatient teachers. Like Gramma, who would brook no excuses that a week wasn't long enough for a dyslexic eleven year-old to read and comprehend _Moby Dick_, even with his own babysitting duties to contend with.

He got up, shuffled the papers together neatly and laid them aside. He left the hotel room and headed out to the street, where Sheriff Hank was once again blowing away Stinky Pete, the town villain. He watched the production, applauded politely with everyone else, and when the Sheriff turned and met his eyes, he returned the man's slow nod with one of his own. Sheriff Hank waited for him to cross the street to the Sheriff's Office, and held the door open for him.

True to his word, the first thing Hank did was lock him in the one jail cell at the back of the room, where there was a cot, a bucket that was probably meant to be the toilet, and a small three-legged stool. Then he pulled the card table over to the bars and sat at the other side of it and began shuffling a deck of cards with an expert's hand.

The boy pulled the stool over to the bars and sat as close to the table as he could. He sat quietly, with his hands folded on the table through the bars, and waited.

"Before I deal a hand of cards to a man, I like to know his name," Hank drawled.

"CJ, Sir," the boy said.

"That's not a name, that's initials," Hank said. "What's yer _name_, boy?"

"Carlton. But nobody calls me that."

"I can see why. Kind of a stuffy name for a kid. S'a good name, though. Strong."

The boy's nose wrinkled in an expression of disgust. "It's my dad's middle name."

"An' you don't like it?" Hank asked.

The boy shrugged. "It's my name. Can't really do anything about it one way or the other."

"You'll grow into it," Hank said. "What's the J stand for?"

The boy's nose wrinkled again. "Jebediah."

Hank laughed outright. "Another name you can't do anything about one way or another, eh? Still, it's a good name. It's an _old_ name. A _western_ name."

"What's _your _name?" the boy asked.

"Henry. But folks 'round these parts call me Hank."

"_That's _a good name," the boy said.

"Well, you go right ahead an' call me Hank, an' I'll go ahead an' call you 'CJ,' even though that ain't a name."

Hank dealt the cards, and showed the boy the basics of five card stud. He proved to be an able and most importantly _patient_ instructor, and the boy picked it up fairly easily. At the end of an hour's instruction, when Hank had to go out and shoot Stinky Pete again, he came back with Miss Chelsie and Stinky Pete himself and they played a real hand of poker. The adults did not patronize the boy, and he lost every hand, but he liked it, because he lost honestly. They treated him like just another adult, not an annoying little kid. Then some tourists came into the Sheriff's Office and the woman asked why there was a little boy sitting locked up in jail.

"Little boy? Why ma'am, that there's Peewee McGee, the meanest hombre ever to come outta Santa Barbara. He's wanted in six counties for robbin', rustlin', murder an' bad singin'. Took twelve deputies to haul 'im in, an' we have to keep a special close watch on 'im. Ain't a jail made can hold 'im," Hank said.

The woman looked at the boy, and the boy looked right back at her. His lip curled in the faintest of sneers. She fidgeted and looked away. The boy sternly repressed the urge to laugh.

The rest of the day passed in the same way. Poker games, with a shifting cast of extras coming in to take their seats as third and fourth hands, being made part of the tour when tourists stumbled in to gawp. The boy didn't mind this, and played along willingly. There was distinct appeal in pretending to be someone else, even for a moment. Eventually, however, Hank pulled the table back to its original position and came over to unlock the cell door.

"Suppertime, CJ. I expect yer hungry by now."

An understatement. The boy was famished.

"You'll find the cuisine at the saloon is kinda limited," Hank said. "I hope you like beans."

"I'll eat anything that doesn't eat me first, Sir," the boy said, and Hank laughed.

"Didn't I tell ya to call me Hank? Go on; I told the saloonkeeper to give you whatever you want, on the house. Try the buffalo burger."

"Sounds good. Does it come with beans?" the boy said, grinning.

"Yes, it does," Hank said. "Go on, now, an' eat, you little blue-eyed devil."

The sun was on the wester, and Old Sonora was quiet, nearly devoid of tourists. The saloon was still open, and the saloonkeeper looked up from wiping down the deserted bar as the boy walked in.

"Ah, you must be the young fella Hank told me about," he said. "What'll it be, Son?"

"Sheriff Hank recommended the buffalo burger, Sir," the boy said.

"An excellent choice. And what can I get you to drink? Mescal? Bourbon? Root beer?"

The boy laughed. "Root beer, please."

"Coming right up."

With an expert flourish, the saloonkeeper deftly flicked the cap off a frosty bottle of IBC root beer and slid it down the length of the bar to the boy. He caught it and climbed up onto one of the stools to sit.

Miss Chelsie was at the back of the saloon, chatting with the piano player. She finished up her conversation and walked up a few steps of the stairs at the back of the saloon to stick her head up into the next floor.

"Girls, come downstairs. He's here," she said. In a moment, a small bevy of similarly-clad women came bouncing downstairs: the three other actresses that played the town's women of ill-repute. At the same moment the saloonkeeper slid a tin plate of beans and a whopping big burger in front of the boy, the women surrounded him, leaning against the bar or perching themselves on nearby stools.

"Isn't he just the cutest thing?" Miss Chelsie cooed. It seemed the other women agreed with her assessment.

"Look at those eyes. Have you ever seen eyes that blue before?" one of the women, a redhead, said.

The boy kept his blue eyes fixed on his plate and ate unhurriedly.

"You know what my Mama would call eyes like those?" another woman, a blonde, said. "Panty-droppers, that's what she'd call 'em."

The boy choked on his beans, and Miss Chelsie pounded on his back with some vigor until, with a gasp, she remembered the condition of his bruises.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, cutie," she said.

"S'okay," he said, in a strangled voice. He took a deep pull from his bottle of root beer and hoped the well-chilled liquid would cool the flush of embarrassment on his cheeks.

The third prostitute, who was dark-haired, reached out and ran her fingers through the boy's hair. "You're Irish, ain't ya? I can tell. With Irish charm and those big, blue eyes, you're gonna be a real heartbreaker when you grow up."

Hank walked in through the swinging doors and rescued the boy from these attentions, scattering the actresses like a flock of birds. He took a seat next to the boy and the saloonkeeper passed him a beer.

"Girls must bother on you all the time," Hank said, after he swallowed a swig.

"Not really, Sir," the boy said.

"Didn't I tell you to call me Hank?"

"Yeah."

"So what's with this 'sir' business?"

The boy grinned. "Force of habit, Sir."

"Well, get over it. My name's Hank, not 'sir.' How's yer burger?"

"It's good."

"Interestin'. Don't look to me like you've taken so much as a bite out of it yet," Hank observed.

"That's because I was distracted by these wonderful beans," the boy said, with a huge grin. "But I'm sure it's delicious…Hank."

"Now we're gettin' somewhere," Hank said. He took another swig of beer. "Tell me about yerself, kid. What kind of history you got in yer family? My ancestry traces back to Daniel Boone. Got any branches like that on yer family tree?"

The boy took a bite of burger, chewed, and swallowed. "Both of my parents are big into genealogy," he said, with an air of reluctant acceptance. "I'm not sure why my Dad's so into it, since most of his relatives seem to be horse thieves, but there was a Civil War Colonel in his line, Muscomb Tiberius Lassiter. Mom's big claim to fame is that she's got some real tenebrous connection to Abraham Lincoln, which is how my little brother got saddled with his name."

"Tenebrous? That's a big word for a little boy," Hank said. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure what it meant.

"All those book reports Gramma makes me do. If nothing else, they really improve my vocabulary," the boy said.

"What kind of things does she make you read?" Hank asked.

"_Tough _things. Things that really weren't meant to be read by a kid, you know? This last one was _The Great Gatsby_. Last week it was 'The Miller's Tale' from _The Canterbury Tales_. She hasn't told me yet what grade she'd give me on that paper, but I bet it isn't good. I have enough trouble reading things that are written in modern English, and _that _was not written in anything even vaguely resembling modern English."

"'The Miller's Tale?' Dad gum, CJ, that _ain't_ literature for young'uns, is it? Not just because it's tough to read. Did you…understand what it was about?"

"I don't have the first clue, Hank," the boy said, and Hank laughed, slightly relieved despite himself. He'd never actually read "The Miller's Tale," but he'd heard it was dirty and knew it had been banned in many schools.

"Did she ever set you to read anything you actually ended up liking?" Hank asked.

"_White Fang," _the boy said at once.

"Oh, that is a good one. Ever read 'To Build a Fire?' One of my favorites. It's by the same author."

"I love that story. It can be eighty degrees outside and I can curl up with that story and feel _cold," _the boy said.

"How about _The Call of the Wild?" _Hank asked.

"I've never heard of that one," the boy said.

"It's kind of a companion to _White Fang, _without being about any of the same characters," Hank said. _"White Fang _is about a wild dog that comes to sit by man's fire and ends up becoming civilized. _The Call of the Wild_ is about a tame dog that learns to live in the wild. You'd like it. Hold on, I'll be right back."

Hank got up and left the saloon, returning in a few minutes with an elderly hardcover book in his hands. He set it down on the bar next to the boy's now nearly empty plate. _The Call of the Wild,_ by Jack London, a copy from a printing run off in 1931. The boy looked doubtfully at the book, and then at the sheriff.

"For you," Hank said. "I've read it so many times I've about got it memorized."

The boy picked up the book in hands that trembled slightly. "For me? To…keep?"

"Yeah."

"Well, geez…thank you, Sir. I mean, Hank."

"Yer welcome, CJ."

The two continued to talk about literature (the boy had already read far more than Hank ever had, but Hank's reading interests proved of great interest to the boy, being concerned mostly with westerns and adventure and history), and hobbies (they matched up fairly well in this regard, too, since the boy was interested in guns and horses and Civil War reenactments), and avoided touchy subjects like parents. Hank realized he'd enjoyed spending time with this strange child. A lifelong bachelor, that was an unusual circumstance for him, to say the least. He couldn't imagine a father so drunk and bastardly to actually beat the poor kid, or a mother so cold as to drop him off in the middle of nowhere and leave him there. She had to be coming back. She _had_ to be.

Although a part of him, deep down and buried, wouldn't mind much if she didn't.

He pushed the thought away as soon as it occurred to him. Even if she didn't show up, it wasn't like he could keep the kid. He'd have to call in the real police, and they'd take the boy away and put him in some foster home or an orphanage of some kind. It hurt even to think about. Who knew what kind of place they'd dump him in?

Not that he particularly looked forward to sending him back to what he came from, come to think of it.

After another bottle of root beer and some more conversation, the boy went to bed at the hotel and Hank went back to his house above the business office. He had a hard time getting to sleep that night, thinking about the boy, what he came from, where he was going, what, if anything, Hank could do about any of it. He was glad the boy's father was in jail, and hoped to God it was for a long damned time.

When the sun rose and Old Sonora's cast of actors began to stir again, Hank tracked down his deputy, a fellow called Tripsy, and put him in charge of the shootouts for the day. Tripsy was both surprised and pleased. Hank hadn't handed off his role in all the years they'd been working together. Then Hank went to the hotel and sat down in a chair in the lobby to wait.

He didn't have to wait long. He'd expected the boy to sleep in, at least a little, but he was up and about not much later than the sunrise, so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that it seemed a natural thing for him to be up early on a summer's weekend. He seemed surprised to see Hank waiting for him.

"Good mornin', CJ," Hank greeted.

"Good morning, uh, Hank," the boy said, with a nervous twitch of the hands at his side.

"You said yer Momma told ya she'd be here to pick you up this afternoon. I figure that gives us a few hours to kill, at least," Hank said, and stood up. "How'd you like to meet our horses?"

"Sure," the boy said.

They spent the morning at the stables. The boy had never ridden a horse before, but he learned quickly at Hank's instruction, and before the sun rose to its zenith in the sky Hank said of the boy that he looked like he was "born in the saddle."

The boy slipped off his horse's back with a glance at the blue plastic watch he wore. "I'd better get to the parking lot, Hank," he said. "Mom will be mad if she has to come looking for me."

"But you don't know what time she's coming, do ya?" Hank asked.

"No, but even so."

"At least have some lunch first," Hank said.

"That's okay, Hank. Sunday nights Mom and Gramma always cook up a huge meal. I won't starve."

"Well, I'll just come an' wait with ya."

The boy looked at him with solemn eyes. "You don't have to, Hank."

"I _want_ to, CJ. I'm gonna miss you when you go."

The boy blushed and looked away. He went back to the hotel and got his things, which consisted only of his homework and _The Call of the Wild_, and met Hank outside. They walked together to the parking lot, where the boy perched himself on the top stile of the fence by the gate to town, and Hank leaned on it with crossed arms. They talked and they watched, and in about two hours a rather badly-kept specimen of forest green '72 Thunderbird pulled up in front of the gate. There was a black-haired woman behind the wheel, and a pair of rowdy children slapping at each other in the back seat. The boy jumped down from the fence and, even though he was already walking toward the car, the woman called out through the open window in a voice that could shatter concrete, _"Get in the car, Booker!"_

"Bye, Hank," the boy said, and Hank raised a hand to him in a wave, his mind turning on what he'd heard. The woman was obviously a smoker, quite possibly a heavy drinker, too, and it was hard to wrap his brain around the syllables she'd said.

_What did she call him? Binker? Booky?_

_Binky?_

"_Geena! Lincoln! Shut it!" _the boy said, as he opened the passenger side door, and both youngsters in the backseat immediately quieted as though the boy's voice were the Word of Law. It made Hank smile, but it was a sad smile. He figured he'd never see the boy again. He really and truly would miss him.

* * *

**A/N:** What do you think? One-shot? Or not? Something tells me I may be adding to this story in the near future.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish."

* * *

**Hero**

_Buck did not read the newspapers or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.*_

"Whatcha reading, Booker?" his mother asked, jerking him out of his reverie.

"_The Call of the Wild, _by Jack London."

"Oh yeah? Where'd you get that?"

"The sheriff at Old Sonora gave it to me. He thought I'd like it, since I told him I like _White Fang."_

"Is that the fella you were talking to when I pulled up?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"What's he want with you, I wonder?" she said, in her perpetually suspicious fashion, and the boy sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I don't think he wants anything with me, Mom. He was just being nice."

"Everyone has an angle, Booker. Don't ever forget that," she said, snappishly.

"Yes, Mom."

She continued in a more moderate tone. "Did you have fun this weekend?"

"Yeah, it was great," the boy said. He did not voice aloud the doubts he'd had that she would come back for him.

"Good. Maybe we'll do this again, sometime."

The boy half-turned in his seat, to look back at his brother and sister in the back of the car. "Did the hooligans behave themselves?" he asked.

His mother rolled her eyes. "They never do, you know that."

Lincoln picked a booger out of his nose and attempted to wipe it on his sister. Geena shrieked and slapped at him. The boy held up a finger in warning and both children settled down immediately. Hooligans. That's what the neighbors called them, and the boy had picked it up from them. It seemed to fit them. The boy was the only one who seemed to be able to calm their antics down. Usually it took nothing more than a shout of their names, but he wasn't above putting them in control holds or the occasional headlock. Only when they had it coming.

With a final warning glare at his brother and sister, the boy turned back to the dashboard and opened his book again. It was a long drive back to Santa Barbara but it was hard to read in the car, bouncing and jostling. He tried for several miles before giving it up as a bad job and closing the book. He turned his head to look out the window.

Thinking about his pleasant hours at Old Sonora made him feel a little guilty. He could just imagine how Geena and Lincoln's Saturday and Sunday morning went. Geena was willful and Lincoln was hyper, and mother had no patience whatsoever for either of them. The boy ran interference, when he was around, laying down the law so his mother didn't feel the need. _Her_ idea of discipline was to scream. It was effective: the children couldn't help but stop what they were doing when she started in, but there was nothing calming about it. Tears were only the most likely reaction to put-downs and belittlements shouted at ear-splitting volume, and the boy tried to spare his siblings that whenever he could. He didn't doubt that they already saw him as a hardass, though he didn't yet think in such terms, but by God, he never made them _cry._

He supposed he'd hear about the weekend's events from the neighbors. They took great interest in the Lassiter Family Drama, and he supposed from the outside looking in there was some entertainment value to it, like a particularly vicious soap opera. They would definitely have noticed he was not at home, and would want to know why not: whether they found the show entertaining or otherwise, they definitely appreciated him for his ability to _almost _keep the peace.

How would he explain it? Should he say he was on vacation? That was certainly what it felt like.

He turned the car radio to an oldies station and got Geena and Lincoln singing along to "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini," which was annoying but less so than most other things they would do to occupy themselves in the car, and the miles between Old Sonora and Santa Barbara slipped away. Soon enough his mother pulled the old Thunderbird into the short spit of driveway at the side of their house.

"Thank _God," _she muttered as she turned off the engine, silencing the radio and the childish voices.

The boy popped his door open and stepped out of the vehicle. Old Mrs. Halvorsen, next door, was out front with a hose, watering her lawn.

"_CJ!" _she said, scoldingly. "Where have you _been, _young man? This neighborhood has been turned on its _ear _since early yesterday!"

So it begins, and did he really _need_ to feel that tickle of a guilty conscience?

"Sorry, Mrs. Halvorsen," he said, not sure he really had anything to apologize for. _He_ hadn't decided to make for the hills. "I was at Old Sonora."

"Where on _earth_ is Old Sonora?" she asked.

"About forty miles outside of town," he said.

"Well, what in the world were you doing out there?" she asked.

_Playing poker. Riding horses. But that's not really what she wants to know._ "I really don't know, Ma'am."

"Well, don't disappear again. Your family needs you, you know."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said. Simple truth, but it was neither the first nor the last time he felt an indescribable weight settle onto his shoulders.

Mother ushered Geena and Lincoln into the house, but the boy stayed outside for a moment. Mr. Marshall, from across the street, was coming toward him. Mr. Marshall was the father of Kenny Marshall, a boy a few months older than the boy and his best and perhaps _only _real friend.

"Hey, CJ, welcome home," the man called out.

"Hey, Mr. Marshall," the boy greeted in return. The man stopped in front of him, one hand in the front pocket of his jeans, looking uncomfortable and hesitant. The boy stepped into the breech. "How bad was it?"

The man cocked his head in the direction of the house and grimaced. "Lot of _ugly_ comin' out a' there, CJ. Lot of ugly."

The boy sighed. "I'll make it up to them somehow," he said.

"Where did you go?" the man asked.

"Old Sonora," the boy said.

"The Wild West tourist trap up the road? Why did you go there?"

"I haven't got a clue, Sir. It was fun, though."

"I bet. Nice that you got a bit of a break, for a change. You spent the night there?"

"At the hotel. It was kind of nice, not having to sleep with Lincoln. He kicks."

"I bet. Kid can't keep still for a minute, even when he's asleep, eh?" The man grinned at him. "Did you meet any _cute girls _at Old Sonora?"

"The town prostitutes took a strange kind of interest in me, but no," the boy said, with a grin of his own. The man doubled over laughing.

"Kid, you are too much," he said, when he had breath. "Kenny missed you. He's at the store with his mother right now, but I'll send him over when he gets back."

"I'd like that. I missed him, too." He had, though he thought overall that his friend wouldn't have cared for Old Sonora much, not having much liking for cowboys and horses. He would have enjoyed learning to play poker, though. Well, he supposed he could teach Kenny himself, now.

His mother stuck her head out the front door. "Booker, get in the house! These damn kids are driving me batty," she called out, in her jackhammer voice.

"All right, Ma, I'll be right in," the boy called over his shoulder, then turned back to Mr. Marshall. "I gotta go, Sir."

"Yeah, I know, I know. Duty calls. I'm glad you got a break, kid."

"Thanks, Sir. See you."

The boy went into the house, where he found both siblings relatively well-behaved. Geena had taken out her Barbie doll and Lincoln was busy with his Tinker Toys. His mother's peremptory summons had been in the nature of a premonition, not a fact, so he felt reasonably confident that he had time to grab a quick shower and change out of the clothes he'd worn since yesterday and even slept in. He knew he must smell pretty strongly of horse, if nothing else.

As he sluiced off under the warm spray, the boy's mind turned to his siblings, as always. Both Geena and Lincoln were dressed in their Sunday best, which seemed to indicate that mother and grandmother had taken them to church that morning. He wondered how that might have gone. Geena usually pouted at church and Lincoln squirmed, and neither woman was well-adapted to dealing with either reaction without shouts or violence, neither of which could be utilized in front of the small congregation. The boy's trick was to hold Lincoln down on his lap as tight as he could, and keep one hand on the back of Geena's neck, not squeezing but definitely directing, so she at the least had to look at the priest and the holy cross. While he could definitely picture Grandma with her hand tight on the back of Geena's neck, he just couldn't imagine Lincoln sitting on Mother's lap for any length of time. She wasn't that kind of mother. She only rarely stooped to hugging _him, _and she was far more demonstrative with him than her other children. She barely acted like they were her children at all, really.

The boy turned off the water with a sigh and toweled himself dry. He changed into clean clothes and returned to the living room, where fortunately both children were still playing relatively quietly, each in their own little sphere. He flopped down onto the couch with another tired sigh. There wasn't a lick of gray in his hair and there was not a line on his face but sometimes he felt so…so…_old._

He looked over at Geena, who was dressing up her Barbie in homemade fashions. Geena made the clothes herself, from castoffs and scrap fabric. She was actually pretty good at it. Then he looked over at Lincoln, building a stick tower out of Tinker Toys, as absorbed in it as he could possibly be with his attention deficiency. He knew that they were far more "normal" than he. He didn't play with toys. Never really had. He'd _had_ a few, some Matchbox cars and GI Joes, the occasional cap or squirt gun. It wasn't that he didn't have the desire to play, there was just…never _time_. Or, if there was time, there was no energy. Running after his siblings kept him run ragged. The only time he played at all was in a concerted effort to keep his siblings occupied.

A car pulled up outside. He didn't have to look to know who it was; he knew the engine of his grandmother's '69 Volkswagen Beetle. The bicycle-like horn tooted twice, deceptively merrily, and the engine died. The boy got up and went to open the door for her.

Brigit Mary Quinn was an older version of her daughter, with the same sharp, suspicious blue eyes. Her once-black hair was now entirely white and her face was heavily seamed. She was scowling as she entered the house. She was always scowling.

She sniffed the air. "Land sakes, boy, you smell like an old mule," she said.

The boy sniffed himself. "I took a shower and changed," he said.

"Well, you didn't scrub hard enough," his grandmother said. "Go on, take these little rodents outside to play. Your mother and I have work to do."

The boy made his brother and sister put their toys away and took them into the front yard to play. Kenny came over on his bike, and the three older children took turns riding it. None of the Lassiter children owned a bike, and the only reason they knew how to ride was because Kenny's father had taught the boy at the same time he taught his own son. Lincoln's legs were too short to reach the pedals, so anyone not riding did their best to keep him occupied and away from the street, into which he liked to run.

Kenny was very different to the boy. He was blonde, and brown-eyed, and generally cheerful, not having to bear up under the stresses that wore down his friend. His parents fought now and again, but they were never the knock-down drag-out brawls the boy's parents engaged in, and no one was beaten. Kenny didn't know how to fight, because Kenny had never had to learn. Somehow, despite their differences, the boys had remained fast friends throughout their lives.

Another child, Amy Steinbreck, who lived down the block, rode up on her bike and joined them. She was friends with Geena and had a nodding acquaintance with the boys. The girls took off to play on their own at the end of the driveway, leaving the boys to their own devices. The boy warned his sister not to wander out of sight before he turned his attention back to brother and best friend.

They played "cops," because the boy didn't like "cops and robbers." To play fair meant sooner or later he would have to play a robber, and he would rather eat Astroturf. Though he'd been willing to let Sheriff Hank make him out to be "the meanest hombre in Santa Barbara," it was far from his preference to portray the bad guy. He really had been sitting on the wrong side of the bars yesterday, but it had been worth it to not feel babysat.

It was difficult to make the game interesting enough to keep Lincoln occupied, and the boy wished he had a jail cell to throw him into. Still, time slipped away. He'd almost forgotten to keep track of Geena when he heard a voice from the street.

"Hey, girls. Whatcha playin'?"

The boy's ears perked. The voice belonged to Joe Meek, a neighbor who lived very close to the Steinbrecks, a guy Amy called "Uncle Joe." The boy didn't know him that well. He looked toward the street, where his sister and her friend were in a state of arrested motion in the middle of a game of hopscotch.

Kenny jostled his shoulder. "Look out, CJ, you're gonna get shot!" he said.

The boy held up his hand. "Time out, Kenny," he said. He stepped closer to the girls.

"You know what I'm workin' on down in my basement?" Uncle Joe was saying. "A carousel! Yeah, I'm refinishing the horses, makin' 'em pretty again. You girls wanna come see?"

The girls nodded excitedly and stepped forward. The boy broke into a run and grabbed his sister's arm.

"Ah, you're not going anywhere," he said.

"Come on, CJ, I just want to see the carousel horses," Geena said, whining.

"No. You've got…chores to do."

"Well, maybe some other time," Uncle Joe said. The boy looked straight at him.

"Not likely, Sir," he said.

Uncle Joe looked at Amy and held out his hand. "Come on, Aims, _you_ wanna come see, don't you?"

She reached for his hand. The boy reached out and stopped her. "Amy, don't go," he said.

"CJ, what's wrong with you?" Geena asked.

"Seriously," Amy said. "You're so _weird."_

"Just don't go. You have…chores to do, too."

Amy laughed. "I do _not."_

"Amy, I'm serious," he said.

"You're not the boss of me," she said, and walked away with Uncle Joe with her nose in the air.

"You are such a dink, CJ," Geena said.

"Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. Go on, Geena, get in the house and stay quiet. Don't bother mom and gramma. Lincoln? Come with me. Kenny, I'll be back."

"What are you doing, CJ?" Kenny asked.

"I don't trust that guy," he said.

Kenny laughed. "You don't trust anybody, CJ; it's genetic."

"Well, sometimes people _are _out to get you," the boy said, and dragged his little brother with him down the street at a fast clip.

Uncle Joe and Amy had already disappeared into his house by the time the boy made it to the end of the block. He didn't bother knocking on that door. He wasn't stupid; he fought back against his father but he knew he didn't stand a chance against a grown man. He knocked on the Steinbreck's door instead. Urgently.

Mr. Steinbreck opened it. "Well, hello there. What brings you by?" the man asked.

"Mr. Steinbreck, Amy went with Uncle Joe into his basement. I really didn't think she should do that," he said, in a rush.

The man blinked and leaned against the doorjamb. His eyes flicked to the house across the street. "Well, now…I'm sure everything's fine…" he said.

The boy swallowed. He kept his eyes fixed on the man's face and hoped some of the urgency of his feelings would communicate to the man.

The man stood up straight again. "Maybe I'd better go check," he said, and boy let out his breath.

He followed Mr. Steinbreck across the street, keeping back and keeping tight hold of Lincoln. Mr. Steinbreck pounded on the door.

"Joe? Joe! Open up. It's Mikey."

No answer.

"You're sure he brought her to this house?" Mr. Steinbreck asked, turning to the boy.

"Yes, Sir."

The man pounded on the door some more, then leaned against it, breathing hard. "CJ, run across the street and go into my house. Tell my wife to call the cops and send them to this address. Then come back here. I'll probably need you to tell them what you saw and heard, okay?"

"Yes, Sir." The boy ran across the street, barely taking the time to check for traffic, dragging Lincoln by the arm.

"Mrs. Steinbreck? Mrs. Steinbreck?" he called, as he burst into the California Craftsman home. The woman came out of the kitchen, alarmed. She grew more alarmed as the boy explained why he'd intruded. She ran to the phone on the wall and dialed the number for the Santa Barbara Police Department.

The boy went back outside to wait for the police, heart pounding. Mrs. Steinbreck followed him out, wringing her hands. When the cruiser pulled up out front he felt instantly relieved. A stocky man in a black police uniform climbed out, one hand already on the butt of the big service pistol at his hip. He was blond, and the shiny brass nametag on his uniform shirt read, "Spencer."

"Okay, what seems to be the problem here?" Officer Spencer asked.

"This young man said the man who lives here took my daughter into his basement, and now nobody's answering the door," Mr. Steinbreck said, more than a little choked up.

Officer Spencer leaned down to look the boy directly in the eyes. "You sure about this, Son?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir," the boy said, firmly and clearly.

"Sounds like Probable Cause to me," Officer Spencer said, straightening up and gesturing everyone to keep back. He went to the door and knocked hard. "Open up. This is the Santa Barbara Police Department."

No one answered. Officer Spencer called something in on the radio clipped to his shoulder and then kicked in the door. The boy couldn't quite help the low _"Awesome!" _that slipped out of him. Another police cruiser pulled up and another officer climbed out. Guns drawn, both officers entered the house.

There was a lot of shouting, but no gunfire. In a few minutes the second officer came out of the house, leading a handcuffed and disheveled Uncle Joe to his cruiser. The boy heard him calling in for an ambulance.

"_What did you do to my little girl?" _Mr. Steinbreck screamed. Mrs. Steinbreck seemed about ready to faint.

"_He was a friend! A family friend!" _she moaned, crying.

An ambulance pulled up, at almost the same time as a black van labeled CSU. Paramedics and Crime Scene Investigators poured into the house, and after a minute Officer Spencer came out.

He spoke to Mr. Steinbreck. "Your little girl's okay," he said, right off, and both parents were relieved. "We want the EMTs to look her over, just to be sure, but it seems he didn't get a chance to do anything but tape her mouth shut and tie her hands up. You got real lucky. Sounds like you can thank this young fella for that."

Officer Spencer put his hand on the boy's head. Mrs. Steinbreck hugged him and called him the "neighborhood angel." Mr. Steinbreck shook his hand. Officer Spencer leaned down in front of him again.

"You did good work here today, young fella," he said. "What's your name?"

"CJ Lassiter, Sir."

A blond eyebrow shot up. "Lassiter, eh? I thought you looked kinda familiar. You're Sean Lassiter's son, aren't you?"

The boy flushed. "Yes, Sir."

"I've arrested your daddy a couple of times," Officer Spencer said. "But _you're_ not him, are you? I don't think you're anything like him. In fact, you might just have what it takes to make one hell of a fine cop one day. Keep your nose clean, CJ. The sins of the father don't _have _to be passed down."

Officer Spencer stood up straight again. "That warm feeling in your chest, CJ? That's the feeling of being a hero, Son. You can feel that every day when you're a cop."

* * *

* _The Call of the Wild, _by Jack London, c. 1903

**A/N:** Little Lassy needed a moment to shine, I thought. This scenario, which may sound unlikely, actually comes from life. Apparently Bad Guys don't always think witnesses will tell on them. It's a little bit of a gimmie making the first responding officer Henry Spencer, but Santa Barbara isn't all that huge.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish."

**A/N:** Not that it matters, but "Aunt Carolyn" is, in my head, portrayed by Tyne Daly. Likewise, "Sean Carlton Lassiter" (the currently-jailed father) is played by a circa-_Star Trek: The Motion Picture _Deforest Kelly. (Upgrade that to roughly _Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country _for my other ongoing, "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.") You didn't ask, but I'd like you to know. Although part of me really, really _didn't_ want you to know. Aunt Carolyn, meanwhile, comes from my previous Carlowe fic, "Who's Psyching Who?" I liked her. Thought I'd explore her a little more.

* * *

**Family Portrait**

The police weren't done with him. The second officer, whose nametag read "Trainor," came to take the boy's statement while Officer Spencer stood listening with his arms crossed over his chest. The boy told them everything he'd heard, and everything he'd done. When he mentioned that the man had lured the girls with talk of carousel horses, Officer Spencer grunted.

"Carousel horses. He had four of 'em down in his basement, half-refinished."

The boy's face twisted in a startlingly adult expression of disdain. "A filthy kidnapper, but an honest man," he said, and Officer Spencer laughed just a little bit.

The boy continued his statement, and when he was finished, Officer Spencer put a hand on his shoulder. "You say he targeted your sister, too, right?" he said.

"Yes, Sir."

"Can I speak with her? Get her statement? Not that I don't believe yours, you understand, but when we take this guy to court it will be good to have corroborating statements - statements that agree with each other. Plus, I don't think it would be a bad thing for her to know for sure and all that listening to her big brother in this instance saved her from a world of hurt."

"Sure, Sir. I told her to go back to the house. I'll go get her." The boy turned and began to drag Lincoln down the street. Officer Spencer stopped him.

"I'll look after this little guy. Just go get your sister," he said, with a hand now on Lincoln's shoulder.

Sky blue eyes met dark blue eyes, and there were clear questions and uncertainties in sky blue. Foremost among these was, _Are you _sure_ you wanna do that?_

"Go on, Son. I've got a little boy just a little bit younger, and I'd be willing to bet _twice_ as hyperactive and self-destructive. You can trust me for the few minutes it'll take to bring your sister back here," Officer Spencer said, with a smile.

"Oh…okay, Sir, if you're sure," the boy said, and released his hold on his younger brother before taking off up the street. He heard Officer Spencer's voice, talking to Lincoln, as he ran.

"Your big brother looks after you good, doesn't he? That's good to see."

He burst through the front door and found Geena, sulking on the living room sofa, and grabbed her by the arm. "Come on, you've got to talk to the cops."

His mother came to the doorway of the kitchen, holding a wooden spoon. "Booker, where do you think you're going? Supper's almost ready."

"Geena has to talk to the cops, Ma," he said.

"But supper's almost ready," she said again.

The boy stopped short, slightly disbelieving. "Ma. It's the _cops. _Amy Steinbreck got _kidnapped. _The police need to hear Geena's side of the story."

"Oh, all right, run along and play," she said, gesturing with her spoon, "but don't you be _one minute _late to this table, you hear me?"

"I…I'll _try_, Ma. See you."

He tugged his sister out of the house and into the yard, whereupon she set her heels and jerked out of his grasp.

"No, CJ. I'm not going anywhere with you!" she said, furiously.

He sighed. _"Geena," _he said.

"No! _You_ made me look like a _dork_ in front of my friend!"

He goggled at her. "Geena, did you hear what I said in there? Let me spell it out for you. Uncle Joe _kidnapped _Amy. He tied her up and put duck tape over her mouth. Selling her to gypsies is probably the _nicest_ thing he might have had planned for her, and he would have done it to _you_, too."

"_I'm going to sell you to gypsies" _was their mother's favorite threat.

He tried to take her wrist again, but she pulled away from him. Her face screwed up and she started to wail.

"Geena. Don't cry," he said, and drew her in for a hug. "Come on. Be brave. Nothing happened to you, and Amy's okay, too. The police rescued her. Now Officer Spencer wants you to tell him what happened, and you've got to do that, all right? Just tell him everything Uncle Joe said. Everything you remember."

She sniffled and nodded against his chest. He drew back and took her hand. He led her down the street to the police cruisers, the CSU van, the ambulance, and the crowd of neighborhood looky-loos he'd been too preoccupied to notice before. Kenny stood in the midst of them, on his bike, eyes wide and slightly awed.

"Is she gonna be able to do this?" Officer Spencer asked, when they were close enough. Geena had her eyes fixed on the ground at her feet and still sniffled occasionally.

The boy squeezed her shoulders. "She'll be all right. She's tough."

Officer Spencer's lips quirked in a half smile, and he squatted down in front of the little girl. "Your name is Geena. Is that right?"

She nodded.

"Can you tell me what happened here today, Geena?" Officer Spencer asked. "Take your time."

Geena shrugged out from under her brother's arm, and in that moment he could tell she had decided to be furious at him again. He sighed and rolled his eyes. She told the first part of the story straight enough, but when she got to the point where the boy had intervened she made some editorial comments.

"My _stupid brother _grabbed me and told me to get in the house, like I'm some kind of _baby," _she said. "He told me I had _chores_ to do, which is so totally a lie. Then he tried telling Amy that _she_ had chores to do, too."

"You're mad at your brother," Officer Spencer said. It wasn't a question.

"I'm _always_ mad at my brother. He's such a _dork, _and he's so _bossy. _He's always telling me what to _do, _what _not_ to do. I'm _sick _of it."

Officer Spencer nodded. "I see. Well, maybe he _is_ a dork. Maybe he _is_ bossy. But maybe, just maybe, he knows what he's talkin' about. He did today. Little Amy Steinbreck might not be alive right now if he hadn't told Mr. and Mrs. Steinbreck what he saw and heard. And if he hadn't stopped you from following, _you_ might not be alive right now, either. Your brother saved her life. He saved yours. He's a hero."

Geena's face twisted into the sulky pout the boy knew so well. Oh well. As long as he had the strength to put her into a decent headlock he could get her to _obey_ him if not exactly _listen_ to him.

Officer Spencer stood up, raised his arms out to his sides, and let them drop, in a "_Well, I tried" _gesture. "Thanks, Sir. It's okay," the boy said, and his expressive eyes added, _"I'm used to it."_

The EMTs brought a stretcher out of the house. Amy Steinbreck lay on her back on it, strapped down for transport but otherwise looking all right, with no tubes or needles or other medical accoutrements to show she'd been hurt. They lowered the stretcher to the grass and let her up. Her mother immediately swept her into her arms. She accepted her parents' effusions, but drew away from them as soon as she could and searched the crowd for something. When she spotted the boy, her face lit up.

"CJ!" she cried, and ran for him, arms outstretched. She gave him a huge hug and kissed his cheek. "They told me they wouldn't have found me if it weren't for you. Thank you so much! You're my _hero!"_

Stunned, the boy just stood there. Amy gave him another quick peck on the cheek, this one somehow much shier than the first, and ran back to her parents. The boy still stood where he was, in a state of shock. Amy Steinbreck had scarcely acknowledged his _existence_ before today. Geena stared at him, her expression one of disgust mixed with surprise.

"The perks, kid, of bein' a hero," Officer Spencer said, _sotto voce_. "Kinda nice, right?"

The boy blushed to the tips of his ears.

Officer Trainor began calling for the crowd to disperse. Officer Spencer held up his hand to stop him.

"I think we should take a moment to acknowledge a happy ending," he said, in a voice pitched to carry to everyone assembled. "A kidnapping was foiled today almost before it could take place, and a little girl's life was saved. Thanks to this young man right here." He pointed to the boy. "I think he deserves a round of applause, don't you?"

He started clapping, and everyone except Geena, who was still staring at the boy in disgust, and Lincoln, who just looked confused, followed suit. The boy blushed redder, but he couldn't help grinning. It was nice to receive some _positive_ attention, for a change. Around him he heard remarks like _"Way to go!" _and _"That kid'll go far!" _and, further off, a voice saying, _"Those Lassiters are a bad bunch, but that CJ's a certifiable _saint, _not just for what he did here today, but for the way he gets those little hooligans to __toe the line__."_ Kenny stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

The applause died out and Officer Trainor resumed dispersing the onlookers. The boy grabbed hold of Lincoln and looked at Officer Spencer. "Do you need anything more from us, Sir?" he asked. "Mom expects us home for supper."

"Hold up just a minute, CJ; I've got something for you," Officer Spencer said, and went to his cruiser. He rummaged around in the front passenger side for a moment and came back holding something in his hand. He offered it to the boy. "Here. This'll do you 'til you get a real one."

It was a badge - plastic, but shiny, like metal - in a black plastic wallet. The boy looked at it. He couldn't quite explain to himself what he felt, looking at that silly plastic toy. An ineffable sense of _rightness._

"Thank you, Sir," he said. His mouth formed the words automatically, the courtesy trained into him, ironically by people to whom courtesy was almost a foreign concept, but his mind was occupied with thoughts he'd never had before. He'd never really thought _ahead; _his mind was too taken up with the here and now. When his teachers asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he never had an answer for them, because he never really thought about growing up at all. This was the first time he ever really thought, _This__ is what I want. I want _this_._

Officer Spencer ruffled his hair, and the boy smoothed it out immediately - what was it with people wanting to mess up his hair? - but he didn't really mind. "Go on home, kid. Have your supper," the policeman said, and the boy took his brother and sister in hand and turned back towards his house.

"Hey, wait up!" It was Kenny. The boy stopped and turned a questioning look to his friend.

"Can I have dinner with you guys?" he asked. The boy was shocked. _Nobody_ asked to come to dinner at the Lassiter house.

"You'd better ask your dad," he said.

Mr. Marshall was not far away, part of the crowd slowly trudging back to their respective houses. Kenny called over his shoulder to him. "Hey Dad, mind if I eat with CJ and his family?"

"If it's all right with CJ's folks," came the reply.

"Come on, let's go ask 'em," Kenny said, and pedaled off down the street.

The boy followed after with his siblings unhurriedly, his mind troubled. On the one hand, having Kenny to talk to over dinner would be unmitigatedly _cool_, but the thought of Kenny subjected to an hour or so of unfiltered Lassiter Family was very _un_cool. Honestly, what was Mr. Marshall thinking? He was pretty slick about it, but the boy knew he kept his son away from the boy's family, at least the elders thereof, as much as possible. The boy didn't mind. He did his best to keep him away from them, himself. Kenny had years of exposure to the Lassiter _siblings; _the boy was a package deal, and the only time it was just the two of them was on the school playground, since the different grades of their small, all-in-one K through 12 Catholic school held recess at different times throughout the day. But Kenny had never really been subjected to a full dose of _Mother, _let alone _Grandma_.

Both at once? Man, he was going to be hit with both barrels.

His aunt was just pulling up to the house in her El Camino when they arrived. Aunt Carolyn was older than her sister by about five years, and wasn't much like her in appearance or demeanor. The boy liked her quite a bit. Carolyn Irene Quinn was a proud member of the Ventura Police Department, was openly critical of her little sister's marriage to a two-bit crook, had never married herself, and didn't particularly care for children. She was good to her niece and nephews, however, if not exactly open with her affections. Despite the physical rigors of her job, she was somewhat heavy-set, but could slam a man into a car hood with great authority. She wore her black hair in a single long plait.

She looked at the boy, and nodded her head to the pileup of official vehicles down the street. "Problems, CJ?"

"Attempted kidnapping. It all came out okay, though," he said, intentionally keeping it casual. Aunt Carolyn liked her facts delivered with a minimum of emotion.

"Were you just sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong, or did it have something to do with you?" she asked, her brown eyes forthright. The boy sometimes wondered whether she was really his mother's sister in blood. Quite apart from the fact that she was relatively nice, the little he'd learned in school about genetics indicated it was weird in the extreme for his blue-eyed family to crop up a brown-eyed woman. If the brown-eyed gene was there, they'd _all_ be brown-eyed, wouldn't they? He hadn't learned enough in the short little course they'd had to learn that genetics weren't nearly as reliable as the scientists said they were. And he didn't yet know the biological concept of a "sport."

"Peripherally to do with us," the boy said. "We were witnesses." He looked back down the street to the police cars still gathered outside the Meek house and casually mentioned, "I'm the one who got the parents to call the police."

"Good," she said.

He looked back at her. "Aunt Carolyn?"

"Yes, Little Man?" She always called him that. She openly claimed him for her favorite because in no way, shape, or form was he actually a _child_, just an underdeveloped adult.

"I'm going to be a cop when I grow up." It was a statement. Pure fact. Not so much as a hint of uncertainty.

"Good," Aunt Carolyn said, with equal decision. "Come on, I'm hungry."

She started for the house. "Aunt Carolyn?" he called, and she stopped and looked back.

He gestured to Kenny, off his bike and standing by the front door looking somewhat anxious. "This is my friend Kenny Marshall. He's going to have dinner with us, if Mom says it's okay."

Her nod was slow and considering. "Okay. Nice to meet you, Kenny."

"Ma'am," Kenny said, with a nod of his own.

"Could you…" and the boy paused for a moment, "…help me keep them _off_ of him? Just a little?" He knew he didn't have to explain any better than that. Aunt Carolyn knew her mother and sister better than he did.

"Of course, Little Man."

His relief was palpable, and to his aunt, just a hint of heartbreaking. _Damn you, Myrna Mary Lassiter,_ she thought. _Damn you, Ma._

It was bad enough her sister had to go and marry a drunken petty criminal, whom Carolyn suspected was physically abusive (if she _knew, _she would have done something about it, possibly something involving the unauthorized discharge of her service weapon, but nobody was talking and the evidence, if it was there, was hidden by clothes), but the way Myrna treated her children - exactly the way _Brigit_ had treated her children - was shameful. Sure, kids were a handful, and in Carolyn's opinion no great joy, but they were _children. _They couldn't _help_ it. You didn't need to treat them like dirt. You didn't have to treat them so they expected you to behave like a _jackal_ towards their friends.

They entered the house together, and Carolyn's eyes flicked to the framed picture on the living room wall above the sofa, a professional portrait of her mother and father, taken about five years ago. The boy's eyes traveled there, too. Joseph Patrick Quinn was a smiling Irishman, with gray hair that showed faint signs of the red it used to be, and vivid blue eyes, ruddy cheeks (aided somewhat by the Bushmill's he was perhaps a little too fond of), and a general air of comfortable good-nature that was not at all a show. He'd _been_ just that good-natured, drunk or sober, a laughing jokester with a good word for everybody. He was dead. A stroke, two years ago. The boy still missed him like a piece of his heart. Carolyn felt much the same. Sunday dinners since had been…not _somber, _but definitely _painful _without that presence there to alleviate things.

"You're late," the boy's mother said from the kitchen doorway, tapping her wooden spoon on the palm of her hand. "Dinner has been ready for _awhile_ now."

"Sorry, Mama," the boy said.

"I expect _punctuality_ from you, Booker," she said, ignoring everyone else who'd come in at the same time. "I _expect_ lateness from Carolyn, since if she got here on time or, heaven forbid, _early_, she might have to _help_. But from _you_, I expect punctuality."

"Oh, leave the kid alone, Myrna," Aunt Carolyn snapped. "If I know you, you finished up the cooking thirty seconds ago. As for me, I get here when I get here. Ventura isn't just down the block, you know, and I have a life beyond these little family get-togethers."

His mother rared back to let her sister have it, but the boy cut in smoothly. "Mom, is it okay if Kenny has dinner with us? His Dad's cool with it."

"Booker, it's a little late to be springing guests on me," she said.

"Myrna, you know as well as I do you and mother cooked enough extra food to feed a battalion, let alone one small boy. Let the kid stay," Aunt Carolyn said.

His mother threw her hands in the air. "All right, for Heaven's sake. Booker, when you're setting the table, set it for an extra place. You'll have to drag a folding chair in from the cubby closet."

"Thanks, Mom," the boy said, and went to go find the chair. He set it at the table and began laying out plates and silverware and napkins and water glasses at the highest possible speed and efficiency. In his experience, his mother would not hit him with the large wooden spoon she kept gesticulating with, but also in his experience, it was better not to test assumptions. Grandmother scowled at him from where she hovered by the stove, silent and implacable, like a Puritan at a witch trial, the boy thought.

"Did you do your report?" she asked, and the suddenness of her voice in the silence startled him so that he fumbled and nearly dropped a water glass.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said.

"It had better be better than the last one you handed in," she said. "Did you even _read_ 'The Miller's Tale?'"

The boy had a good memory, almost photographic, and he'd expended a great deal of effort slogging his way through the near-gibberish he made of Chaucer's randy story. "'Whylom ther was dwellinge at Oxenforde a riche gnof, that gestes heeld to borde, and of his craft he was a carpenter,' he quoted, struggling through the awkward pronunciations. "I will tell you honestly, Gramma, that all I get out of that is that the guy, whoever he is, is a carpenter. That's pretty much all I got out of the whole thing. I don't speak Old English, Gramma, or whatever it was written in. Stick me back on Shakespeare. He's _easy_ compared to Chaucer."

"You are being _impertinent_, boy."

"Sorry, Gramma, didn't mean it," he said, though he knew full well he did.

"You got _nothing_ out of that story?" she said.

"Well, I figured out that the carpenter was an old man who married an eighteen year old girl, and was jealous, and had a handsome young boarder living with him, some other guy was squeamish about farts, and both of those guys were after the wife, but she loved the boarder, Nicholas, and Nicholas pretended to be sick, or something, and then he told the carpenter that a great flood was coming, and they made him sleep on the roof in a washtub, or something, while the boarder and the wife got it on downstairs in the carpenter's bed, and after that it really made no sense. Maybe it would have, if I had some kind of _translation."_

"You shouldn't need a translation for _English, _boy," grandmother said.

"It wasn't English! It wasn't English as it has been spoken in the last six hundred _years!"_

"Booker! Set the table!" mother barked, coming into the kitchen again.

He jumped and returned to setting out plates and forks and glasses.

"Honestly, Gramma, I think I would have found the story was actually kind of _cool_, if I'd been able to understand it better," he said, over his shoulder as he worked. "I mean, the guy did mention farts right out there in print."

Grandmother snorted derisively. "That would be what you'd take away from it."

_Yes, Gramma, 'cause I'm __eleven_, he thought but didn't say. Grandmother had taught at the high school level, and he just bet her former students were too cowed by her gimlet stare to snicker at the humor of _The Canterbury Tales. _Apparently she knew no other level at which to teach.

"I take it I have to do the report again?" he said, keeping his voice as meek as possible.

"You're damn right you have to do the report again, young man."

He sighed. "Yes, Gramma. I suppose you're going to make me do another _new_ book report, too?"

"You're damn right I will."

"Can I make a request? _The Call of the Wild."_

"What?"

"_The Call of the Wild_, by Jack London. I…got hold of a copy this weekend…and I'm eager to read it."

"Bring me this book," she demanded, and he sighed and went to collect it from the room he shared with Lincoln. He handed her the copy and she flipped through it with that gimlet eye. "Well, it's…not an abridged or otherwise altered version, it would seem. Not something they spew out to make it easier for _kids_ to read. I suppose you can read this."

"Thank you, Gramma."

A small coup, but a victory nonetheless. He took what he could get. Grandmother loved him, and he knew that, but she was a hard woman.

The family gathered in the kitchen and the boy directed everyone to their chairs. He took the uncomfortable folding chair for himself, put Lincoln to his left and Kenny to his right, and blocked him in with Geena, who could generally be counted on to behave like a human being at the dinner table - not so much because she _was, _the boy thought, but because it came fairly naturally to a girl to behave herself at the dinner table. Lincoln, on the other hand, could be counted on to play with his food, which the boy allowed to some extent, but he needed to be close at hand for the inevitable moment when he tried to stick an asparagus spear up his nose, or something similar.

The boy had purposely given the adults somewhat more space around the oval table. He sat Aunt Carolyn next to Geena, Grandmother next to Aunt Carolyn, and Mother between Grandma and Lincoln. They all sat down and clasped hands and bowed their heads while Grandmother said grace.

"Heavenly Father, bless this meal and this family gathered here, and those absent from our table. Grant us the strength to battle our demons and the grace to accept that which we cannot change," she intoned solemnly.

"Amen," the boy said, in a chorus with the others' voices, and he meant it, fervently, even though he'd already come to think of grace, as spoken by any given member of his family, as The Big Lie.

Mother got up and brought the first of the platters of food around. Country-style beef ribs, which had actually been simmering in a crock pot for most of the day, and the boy, who had not eaten anything all weekend except yesterday's buffalo burger and a too-distant Eggo waffle many long hours before that, felt his stomach clench in anticipation. Beef ribs were an unusual treat even at these Sunday spreads, because money was tight, even though both Grandma and Aunt Carolyn pitched in to help fund these family get-togethers. With so many people around the table, even without taking Kenny into account, there wouldn't be enough full ribs to go around. The grownups would get full ribs, with the children getting halves; just enough for a taste, really, but that was okay. A taste was better than nothing, and one thing was certain, there would be plenty of other food to sate his appetite.

So he was more than a little surprised when his mother put on his plate not one but two full ribs, smothered in deep red barbecue sauce. He looked up at her in surprise, and her expression gave nothing away. He glanced down the table. Geena had half a rib on her plate. Kenny had half a rib on his. To his left, Lincoln had maybe a _third_ of a rib. He looked back at his plate, expecting to see half a rib, or maybe two thirds of one, but no, there were two ribs. He chanced a glance at the adults' plates. One rib. What gives?

Beside him, Kenny was evidently thinking the same thing. He nudged him gently in the side and whispered, "How do you rate?"

"Mom's always trying to fatten me up," he said. It was true, though it didn't usually extend to giving him bigger portions of "special" food_. Expensive _food. Mother was comfortably upholstered. Grandmother was comfortably upholstered. Aunt Carolyn was comfortably upholstered. The boy, like his father, was more of a stick figure, to the women's clear derision. Maybe Mother knew he hadn't eaten today.

More bowls and platters of food came around. Mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted corn, cornbread muffins. It wasn't all the food there was. It was just all the food one plate could hold. The rest would come around after the plates cleared the first time. In the oven, keeping warm, the boy could see a spiral-cut ham, there was a bowl of potato salad, there was a bowl of "pink salad," an ambrosia-like side dish made with whipped cream, strawberry Jello, marshmallows, and fruit cocktail, there was steamed mixed vegetables, and there was a massive carrot cake. Food the rest of the week was rather catch-as-catch-can, with Mother working or resting, as the case may be, leaving the boy and his siblings to forage for leftovers or microwavable foods (Eggos, enough to keep the company in business, and Quaker Oats, and potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes. If there ever was an American potato blight, the boy knew one Irish family that was going to experience some major famine), but Sundays made up for that. When everyone was again seated and Mother started eating the boy dug in, trying to be _slightly_ more mannerly than a wolf at a fresh caribou carcass.

Fortunately, the act of eating was serious business in this family, and no one attempted conversation before the ham was brought out. By that point the first pangs of appetite were sated and all bets were off. The boy fidgeted on his uncomfortable chair and wondered who would make the first asinine remark, mother or grandmother. He silently willed Kenny not to draw attention to himself, knowing that it really made no difference.

"So, CJ," Aunt Carolyn said, and bless her for speaking first, "what did _you_ do this weekend?"

"Mom took me to Old Sonora," he said.

Aunt Carolyn looked sharply at her sister. "Old Sonora? The Old West tourist trap Daddy used to take us to? Myrna, I thought you'd never go back _there_. You always hated it."

"Booker likes cowboys," mother said, dismissively.

"Well. It's…surprisingly nice…and _motherly_…of you to put up with it for his sake," Aunt Carolyn said.

"I didn't. I dropped him off."

Aunt Carolyn dropped her fork. "You left an _eleven year old boy _at the Old West town forty miles outside of Santa Barbara?"

"If I'd stayed, I'd have had to deal with Geena and Lincoln. Lincoln would have been impossible to corral, and Geena would have pitched a royal fit about being there. Booker can take care of himself."

"Booker _does _take care of himself, far too much," Aunt Carolyn said. "What did you do while he was poking 'round Old Sonora?"

"What else would I do? I came back home. I picked him up this afternoon, after church. Booker doesn't need church quite as much as these little heathens do."

"You left him there _overnight?" _Aunt Carolyn was aghast.

"Which is so totally cool," Kenny said, in a low aside. "Tell me all about it later, promise?"

"Promise," the boy said.

"He's a _boy, _Carolyn," grandmother said over top of them. "What do you imagine would possibly happen to him?"

"Plenty. Do you realize that while you were in here cooking someone down the street was almost _kidnapped? _That could have been _your child, _Myrna!"

"Booker wouldn't get kidnapped," mother said.

"_Geena _almost did," Kenny said, rather brightly, and the boy elbowed him sharply.

"Not for lack of sense, I'll grant you," Aunt Carolyn said, either willfully or accidentally ignoring Kenny. "But little boys _do_ get kidnapped. Someone could have snatched him right up and made off with him. I see it all the time."

"That would be like snatching up a wolverine," mother said, and despite himself the boy felt a slight puffing of pride.

Aunt Carolyn rolled her eyes, sighed, and let the subject by - sort of.

"Tell us about this attempted kidnapping, CJ," she said. "What happened, exactly?"

"_I'll _tell you what happened," Kenny said, excitedly. "CJ saved Amy Steinbreck's _life, _that's what happened. The cop said he was a hero. Amy did, too. She kissed him. Twice."

"Yuck," Geena said, distinctly.

Aunt Carolyn looked at the boy. "CJ? More fact, less thrill, please."

So the boy told the whole thing once again. He left out the part about the round of applause he'd received. Aunt Carolyn would probably accept that in good spirit but mother and grandmother would scoff. Wouldn't do to get a big head, anyway, and he'd had his moment.

"I always knew that Joe Meek was a damned pedophile," grandmother said. "Always _watching _the children."

The boy seriously doubted his grandmother could pick Joe Meek out of a police lineup, but he knew better than to say anything.

"What's a pedophile?" Lincoln asked, and he would be curious about _that._

"It's someone who likes kids in a bad way," the boy told him, hoping to forestall the more explicit explanation grandmother would undoubtedly make.

"How can you like kids in a _bad _way?" Kenny asked, skeptically, and the boy looked at him and knew with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that his friend had _no idea _what a pedophile was, and if he wasn't quick, _someone_ at the table would tell him exactly.

"It's someone who likes to do bad things to kids," he said, in a rush. "You know, like kidnap them."

"Oh." Kenny was silent for a moment, considering. "Does that mean that Billy Lemke in the seventh grade is a pedophile? He likes to beat kids up and take their lunch money."

The boy's face flushed with embarrassment. "No, Billy Lemke is a bully," he said. "Pedophiles are…are…are adults."

"That is a very _weak_ definition of a pedophile, boy," grandmother said. _"Very _weak."

"It's good enough for Kenny's ears, Ma," Aunt Carolyn said. "Lincoln's, too. I suppose it was you who told _CJ_ the proper definition of a pedophile, despite the fact that he's _years_ from his first whisker?"

"Forewarned is forearmed," grandmother said, with a haughty sniff.

"But he's a boy. You recently posited that such things _don't happen _to boys."

The adults began squabbling, three rather gruff and decidedly loud female voices overlapping until no sense could be made of what anyone was saying. The boy was relieved. It was actually better when this happened, though it was as embarrassing as all get-out. Kenny spoke to him under the cover of his elbow.

"Does this happen a lot?" he asked, in a low voice.

"All. The. Time," the boy said, pitching his voice just as low.

While the adults were at each other's throats the children were able to make quiet conversation with each other. Kenny asked if he couldn't please have another small dollop of pink salad and the boy got up and got him some. In all it was one of the more pleasant Sunday dinners the boy could remember, at least since Grampa died, with everybody on what was, unfortunately, their best behavior. At least they'd left Kenny alone.

Mother got up after awhile, still keeping up her end of the unintelligible argument, and began putting leftovers into Tupperware containers. That was the boy's signal to get up and begin collecting everybody's empty or near-empty plates.

"What are you doing?" Kenny asked him.

"It's time to wash the dishes," the boy said.

"_You've _got to do that?"

"Well, _they_ cooked it all, so, yeah."

Kenny considered for a moment, then climbed down off his chair. "I'll help."

The boy smiled. "Thanks, man. I'll wash, you dry, and Geena can put things away."

"Deal."

The adults took their argument onto the back porch - so mother could smoke - and peace reigned in the little house while the older children did the dishes, though undoubtedly the neighbors were being treated to an earful. The boy rolled up his sleeves and ran the dishwater as hot as it would get, and when he flinched back from sticking his hands into the gently steaming suds he set his teeth and plunged both hands deep under the water.

"Dude, why did you do that?" Kenny asked, agape. "That water is frickin' _boiling."_

"It's not that bad," the boy said, a little bit tightly, because it was awfully hot. He kept his hands in the water.

"Dude, get your hands out of the hot water," Kenny said.

"I'm getting used to it," the boy said. "It'll be easier to do the dishes."

Kenny shook his head. "Man. You're nuts_._ Do you do this every time?"

"One of these days, I won't need to," the boy said.

"Dude. You're _nuts."_

"It's training," the boy said.

"Training for _what? _Are you going to be a professional dishwasher when you grow up?" Kenny demanded.

"Training for life. Life is pain. The sooner you learn to accept that, the better off you'll be. And the sooner you learn to _suck it up, _the better off you'll be." The boy pulled a plate out of the hot water, regarded the reddened hands that held it for a brief moment, and then washed it clean. He rinsed the plate and handed it off to Kenny, who stood ready with a dry dishtowel.

Kenny shook his head again. "Dude. You're nuts," he said, as he dried the plate. He handed it off to Geena who trotted off to put it in the cupboard with the clean dishes. "I mean, I always knew it, 'cause otherwise, you'd never have gone after Big Jimmy Templeton on the playground last year, but dude. You're certifiable."

"I've got to learn to ignore pain," the boy insisted. "Like the Spartans. _They_ taught their boys to suck it up."

"Who the heck are the Spartans?" Kenny asked.

"They were an ancient civilization. Their whole culture centered around warfare," the boy said. "They were the ultimate tough guys."

"Did they wear skirts, like most 'ancient civilizations?'" Kenny asked, a bit sarcastically.

"Well, sort of. But they were tough anyway. I mean, look at the Scottish. _They're_ tough."

"You can't be tough prancin' around in skirts and sandals, CJ," Kenny insisted.

The boy kept passing his friend clean dishes to dry. He rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated breath. "Okay, listen, I'll tell you a story to give you an example. This is the kind of story the Spartans passed down, so it may never have happened, but at least it shows their mindset. Spartan boys were sent to school from the age of six, to learn discipline and the warrior's arts. Three Spartan boys had grown up together in this school, and they stood by each other through thick and thin. One night, the three of them broke curfew to sneak over to one of the rival boarding houses and steal their mascot, a live weasel. They got the weasel and one of the boys slipped it inside his tunic to hide it, but as they were sneaking back, one of their teachers caught them. He made them stand in a line while he read them the riot act about breaking curfew. None of the boys made a peep about the stolen weasel, not even the one who had the critter in his shirt.

"Eventually the teacher wound down, and he turned to the boys and demanded to know what they had to say for themselves. At that moment, after standing there the whole time still and perfectly quiet, the third boy, who had the weasel in his shirt, fell over and died. The weasel had disemboweled him." He caught Kenny's confusion so he hastened to explain, "It ripped his guts out. And a weasel is a pretty small animal, so you know it took awhile. The boy was held up as a hero of the school. Do you get _why?"_

Kenny shook his head. "Nuh uh, man. He sounds like an idiot to me."

"_Because he didn't make a sound. _It must have hurt like anything, but he just stood there and took it, rather than tell and get his friends into bigger trouble. He _sucked it up, _man."

"He _died, dude," _Kenny said, emphatically. "If he'd said something, he might have been okay."

"Kenny, work with me here. That's not the point."

"Who told you that story?" Kenny demanded.

"Mom. Well, she told me _a_ story, and the parts I couldn't remember I made up myself. But the bones are there."

"And I suppose she told you she wants you to be just like that brave, stupid Spartan son of a booger, right?"

"Well, more or less. Yes."

Kenny shook his head yet again. "Man. Your folks are really doin' a number on your head, CJ. I ain't kiddin'. I suppose you were thinking of the Spartans when you took on Big Jimmy Templeton."

"No. I was just mad at him for picking on Hubie Smith."

"Dude, you _hate_ Hubie Smith."

"I hate bullies more," the boy said.

"But Big Jimmy Templeton is _five times your size_. He's the only boy in our grade who _shaves, _for crying out loud. They say he's been held back three times. He sent you home bloody, dude. He could've sent you home in a _body bag."_

"I got a few licks in."

Kenny nodded, impressed despite himself. "You gave him a black eye and a bloody nose. He was crying. Actually _crying."_

The boy's face split in a huge grin, which put dimples at the corners of his mouth and pushed his high, broad cheeks into his so-blue eyes. "Yeah. He was."

They finished up the dishes, and the boy let the water out of the sink and washed it down with the sprayer head. He dried off his hands and led his friend into the living room, where Geena already sat on the couch, arms folded, staring up at the ceiling. Lincoln was curled up asleep in the armchair.

"Do you wanna go outside?" Kenny asked.

"No, man. It's loud out there," the boy said, and sat on the other end of the couch. He put his own head back and closed his eyes. "Just listen to the silence and enjoy."

Kenny dropped into the other armchair. "I bet…you guys…really dig silence, huh?" he ventured tentatively. The boy and his sister both sighed expressively. Kenny sat back and let the silence close around them.

The boy opened his eyes. Above him, on the wall, at an awkward viewing angle, his grandfather smiled, as honest as life. The boy picked up his head and stared across the room at the _other_ picture that hung by the door. This portrait had been taken just months ago, and it still gave him a little twinge of unreality to look upon it.

There was a smiling family in that portrait, dressed in their Sunday best, and oddly, it looked just like _his_ family.

There was his mother, seated in a black dress and a snappy white blazer, a cluster of white flowers pinned to her lapel, smiling like she meant it.

On her lap sat Lincoln, in a black sailor suit, little hands clasped together before him like he was applauding, cherubic face set in a broad open-mouthed smile (the photographer had had a Kermit the Frog hand puppet, and had been good at imitating the voice).

Next to her sat Geena, in a burgundy dress with a white Peter Pan collar, her black curls tied back with a red velvet ribbon with a big bow, smiling prettily because she was getting her picture taken.

Above her stood their father, tall and thin and severe, but his hard features softened by a smile that looked perfectly natural. He wore a charcoal gray suit and a light blue tie that brought out his vivid blue eyes. He had one hand on Geena's shoulder. The other was on the shoulder of the boy that stood to his right, above his mother.

The boy was the only one who wasn't smiling like he meant it. He stood there in his crisp white shirt, his black tie neatly knotted and his hair slicked back, and his smile was nothing but uncomfortable and did not reach his own vivid blue eyes. His was the smile of a boy who knew this photograph of this happy smiling family was nothing but an elaborate hoax, designed to fool the unwary. The boy looked at that portrait and knew why his mother had hung it on the wall next to the door. It was part of the hoax. No matter what face the family showed to any brave guest during their stay, their last sight as they left the premises would be that smiling, perfect family.

The boy hated that picture. He _hated_ it. He hated the lie. Reality was bad enough. He didn't need this constant reminder of what he lacked in life.

The boy rested his head against the back of the couch again. A Spartan wouldn't complain. Clint Eastwood wouldn't complain. John Wayne wouldn't complain. Hoss Cartwright wouldn't complain. Sheriff Hank wouldn't complain. Officer Spencer wouldn't complain. Just…suck it up.

He almost dozed off. When he heard voices - _loud_ voices - from the front yard, he snapped his head up. The front door opened. His mother bellowed into the house.

"_Booker, get out here!"_

He shot to his feet. Kenny and Geena were close behind. He went out to the front yard, followed by the others.

Mr. and Mrs. Steinbreck stood on the front walk, their arms about each other. Mother, grandmother, and Aunt Carolyn stood in a row at the front of the house, their arms folded and their eyebrows raised, in demeanor looking much like an oblast council. Mother still clutched a cigarette in her nicotine-stained fingers.

"Hello," the boy said, nervously. He didn't have the first clue what was going on.

"CJ, we just wanted to thank you again for…saving our daughter's life," Mrs. Steinbreck said.

The boy blushed. "You don't have to do that, Mrs. Steinbreck."

Mr. Steinbreck held up a hand. "Now now, we _do_, CJ. Not everybody would have done what you did. A lot of people would have said it was none of their concern. They might not even have seen anything wrong with it, since Amy knew Joe. But you stepped up, kid, in a big way. You took the initiative to make sure the right people knew what was going on. We owe you for that. We can't thank you enough."

"We just wanted to give you a little something," Mrs. Steinbreck said. "To show our appreciation."

"Didn't know what team you follow, but you strike me as an Oakland man," Mr. Steinbreck said, and reached around behind him to wheel into view a black and silver bicycle with the Raiders logo on an aluminum plate between the handlebars.

"_Dude!" _Kenny said, laughing, as he pushed against the boy's shoulders.

"Not fair!" Geena shouted. "How come _CJ_ gets a bike?"

"You want a bike, Cookie?" mother said, after a puff on her cancer stick. "Save somebody from a pedophile."

The boy walked down the front steps slowly, almost in a daze. He didn't follow football at all, but it was an awesome bike nevertheless. Still, something didn't feel right. Should he really be rewarded just for doing his job?

"I don't…think…I can accept this," he said, slowly and quietly.

"Dude, you're certifiable!" Kenny said. "Take the bike, man!"

He shook his head. "I was just doing my job."

Aunt Carolyn spoke softly. "Little Man. Your job is to look after your little brother and sister, and you do that job well. This? This went above and beyond the call of duty. Now, when you're a grownup and you swear that oath to protect and serve, things like this _will _be your job, and you won't be able to accept rewards for them. But until that moment, Little Man, you're entitled."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

* * *

**Summertime Dream**

That night, when the boy went to bed, Lincoln wrapped his little arms tight around his neck from behind and refused to let go. The boy worked a hand up underneath them, to keep from being throttled.

"Lincoln…where did you sleep last night?" he asked, a bit hesitantly.

"In here," was the quiet, almost mournful reply.

"Alone?"

"Yeah. Geena screamed at me when I tried to go to her room, and Mama told me to be a man and go back to bed."

"I'm sorry, Lincoln. Were you scared?"

The little boy sniffled. "I tried not to be, but it was so quiet, and the dark just seemed so _big."_

The boy patted his brother's arm. "Sounds like you took it like a man, though. You were very brave."

"I didn't feel brave. I felt like a…like a…like a big _wiener."_

The boy sternly repressed the urge to laugh. "You were brave, though. You know why? Because you _were _scared, and you stuck it out anyway. That's bravery, right there, Lincoln."

"_You _wouldn't have been scared," Lincoln said, sniffling again. "You're not scared of anything."

"That's not true. I was scared last night myself. Stayed awake 'most all night."

"Really?" Awestruck. And definitely disbelieving.

"Of _course, _really. I was in a strange place, a long way from home, all alone, and I didn't really know if Mom was ever coming back for me. Of course I was scared."

"What did you do?"

"What could I do? I was brave. I lay there and faced being afraid, just like you did."

"Have you ever been scared before?"

"All the time. The world is a scary place, Lincoln. All you can do is face it. If you try to hide from it, you'll miss out on everything."

"Okay. If I ever have to sleep alone again I'll be brave and face it," Lincoln said. Then he snuggled into the boy's back. "But I like it much better when you're here."

"We've got each other's backs, Lincoln," the boy said. "Now go to sleep, and don't choke me."

The boy slept fairly well despite Lincoln's chokehold and close-range kicking. The rest of the week felt pretty much like normal. Mother worked, grandmother came over now and again to check on them, and the boy chased after his siblings and if it seemed that the neighbors were treating him with a degree or so more respect than usual the boy didn't let it get to him. It was a funny kind of feeling, and he had to admit to himself that he liked it, but he couldn't let it get in the way of everything he had to do.

The weekend rolled around again at long last, and the boy entered into it with no expectations. Last weekend was a fluke, an aberration. The last thing mother wanted on her weekends was to be saddled with unadulterated Geena and Lincoln. So that Saturday morning as he fixed Eggos for himself, his sister, and his brother (and wished he were old enough to use the stove, so he could maybe fry up an egg to go with it), he expected to be on duty for the day, no question.

So it was a shock when, after he finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes, mother told him to pack a change of clothes and whatever else he needed for an overnight trip.

"Where am I going?" he asked, a little worried.

"Old Sonora. You liked it there, didn't you?"

"Very much. But driving out there and back, twice, and paying for food and a hotel room…isn't that kind of…_expensive?"_

"You let me worry about that, Booker," mother said, and that was the final word.

The boy went to his room. He didn't have such a thing as a suitcase, so he packed a change of clothes in last year's schoolbag, which would probably end up being _this_ year's schoolbag as well. He packed a comb, his toothbrush and the tube of cinnamon-flavored toothpaste that only he used (the others in the household weren't allergic to mint and didn't care for the flavor of cinnamon toothpaste), his homework and his copy of _The Canterbury Tales_. He was still puzzling his way through "The Miller's Tale" trying to get enough of a sense of what was happening in it to rewrite his report. He didn't have a particularly good feeling in his heart about getting the necessary A on it this week, either, which meant he'd be doing it all over again next week, too. Fortunately he thought he'd done pretty well on his report about _The Call of the Wild._

All packed, he met his family in the living room, where mother stood jingling her car keys. "You got everything?" she asked. The boy nodded. "Let's blow this joint," she said, and turned for the door.

When they were all in the Thunderbird and well under way, the boy turned the radio on to that same Oldies station and got his siblings singing along. Mother started in singing, too, croaking like a bullfrog, but it was so unusual in the extreme for her to join in with anything that amused her children that they found it rather heartening.

"_Tell Laura I looooove her, tell Laura I need her. Tell Laura not to cry, my love for her…will never die."_

"_Sittin' in La-La, waitin' for my Ya-Ya, ah uh, ah uh."_

"_It ain't me, babe. I said no, no, no, it ain't me, babe. It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe."_

"_There's a man in the funny papers we all know (Alley Oop Oop, Oop, Oop Oop). He lived way back a long time ago (Alley Oop Oop, Oop, Oop Oop)."_

"_Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood, you sure are lookin' good. You're everythang that a Big Bad Wolf could want…awhooooo!"_

The miles ticked by beneath the forest green hood as song played after song. They were just finishing up Thirteenth Napoleon's "They're Coming to Take Me Away (Ha Ha)" (a song that spoke to the boy on many levels) when they pulled up to the gates of the old west town.

"Here you go," mother said, and handed the boy roughly a hundred and fifty dollars in cash - way more than he needed to pay for a room for the night and eat his fill at the saloon. "Don't you dare lose track of a cent of this money, you hear?"

The boy carefully tucked the wad away into his little nylon wallet. "I won't, Mama."

"Have fun. I'll pick you up around two o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"All right. Bye, Mama. Bye, Geena, bye, Lincoln."

The boy glanced into the backseat. Lincoln looked slightly fearful, so he reached back and clasped his hand. "Be brave, big man. It's just one night." The little boy gulped and nodded.

The boy turned and reached for the door handle. He popped the door open and climbed out of the car. "See you guys tomorrow," he said, and closed it. He waved as the T-Bird roared off. Lincoln waved back, his little hand visible over the top of the backseat.

The boy shouldered his schoolbag and went to go see about a room. It would be a fine joke if the little hotel was fully booked, but he got the impression that didn't happen often. Old Sonora was more of a day trip, not an overnight. He didn't expect them to give him any trouble about it, this time, but he prepared himself for it nevertheless. You never knew, with adults.

It was the same desk clerk on duty in the little hotel lobby.

"Well, if it ain't the Lone Wolf. What brings _you _rollin' back into town, kid?" he asked.

The boy opened his wallet and took out a couple of twenties. "I'd like a room, please, Sir."

"Of course you would," the clerk said, and made change for him. He handed over an old fashioned iron key. "Room seven this time, Hoss. I'll let Hank know you're here."

The boy went up the stairs to his room - the very topmost room, basically the attic - and the desk clerk left the desk unattended long enough to slip outside and find Sheriff Hank.

"Hey, Hank. He's here," the man said, without further explanation.

Hank Mendel didn't need one. "Where?"

"At the hotel. Room seven."

Hank started walking that direction. He paused long enough to speak to Tripsy in a low voice, telling him to take over the shootouts for the day. He was unaccountably excited. He never dreamed he'd see the boy again, yet here he was, just one week later. Hank had to give himself a mental shake and tell himself to slow down. The kid might not want to have his time monopolized, just because _Hank_ was lonely and needed a friend. One thing he'd figured out about the boy in the short time he'd spent with him was that he was an independent little cuss, and there was no doubt in Hank's mind that he did not require babysitting. The kid was more grown up than a lot of adults Hank knew.

He entered the hotel and climbed the stairs to the fourth-floor room, his hard-soled boots clomping on the stairs unmuffled by a carpet runner. He knocked his knuckles against the door to room seven.

"Who's there?" he heard from inside, a suspicious little boy voice.

"Hank," he said, and he heard the lock turn. The door opened and revealed the boy, nattily attired, hair perfectly tamed, and smiling broadly.

"Hi, Hank. Wasn't sure you'd remember me," he said.

He stepped back, and Hank stepped into the room. "I couldn't forget you…Binky," he ventured, and the boy's eyes widened momentarily, surprised to hear the nickname, Hank thought, but he made no mention of it.

In truth, the run of the boy's thoughts was, _Don't know where he came up with _that_ one, but if Hank wants to call me Binky, he can go right ahead._

_No one else, though._

"Glad to see you back in town, kid," Hank said. "I was wonderin' what you were plannin' on doin'?"

"Well, I've got a book report to work on, little as I want to. 'The Miller's Tale'. I figure I'll be writing book reports on it 'til I die, because it's gonna take me that long to figure out what the heck it all means."

"I…uh…I went down to the library and checked out a copy of _The Canterbury Tales _myself, just to see what it was really about," Hank admitted. "Ain't sayin' I got a great handle on it, but maybe I could help ya."

"You _did? _You…you _could?" _The boy was clearly dumbstruck.

"Sure. Break out your copy, Binky. You brought it with ya, didn't ya?"

"I've got it right here," the boy said, and grabbed a book out of his schoolbag. He hurriedly flipped through to the section that had clearly been most read, judging by the way the book sort of naturally opened to it. "I've got to tell you, Hank, I've read it forwards, backwards, sidewards, and upside-down, and I can't make heads or tails of most of it."

Hank took the book and paged through the (thankfully rather short) poem. "Well, this is just gobbledygook," he said in surprise. "Where's the English translation?"

"It doesn't _have_ one," the boy said, and hopped onto the edge of the bed with a sigh of frustration. "Gramma says I shouldn't need one, since technically, it _is_ written in English. And you know the funny thing? I've got a feeling, judging from what I have been able to parse out, that Chaucer wouldn't want this story held up as some great fantastical classic piece of masterpiece literature. I think he was just telling a funny, kind of dirty story, and the fact that people are still reading it six hundred years later - and the fact that the language has changed so much that it now takes a professor of classic literature to understand it - let things get blown kinda out of proportion. Like a lot of Shakespeare. Yeah, he wrote some serious literature, but he also wrote some things that were clearly more about having fun and getting a laugh."

Hank set the book down, thinking this was a mighty sophisticated opinion for an eleven year old, and moreover that the kid was probably dead on, but what he said was, "I'll go get the library's copy, Binky. I've still got it. It's got a page-to-page translation in it. Still ain't exactly easy to understand, but if you got anything out of _this_ gibberish you'll probably figure out more than enough from the translation to write a good book report."

The boy looked relieved. "Thanks, Hank. I'll owe you big time."

"Happy to help, Bink."

Hank left the hotel for his house above the business office, and returned in a few minutes with the paperback library copy of _The Canterbury Tales _in hand. He gave it to the boy, who found the correct section quickly enough, and settled in to read. Hank sat down in the room's wingback armchair and watched the boy pour over the ancient poem, reading slowly but steadily, with occasional outbursts of "So _that's_ what that meant," or "Well, I _still_ don't get that," and finally _"She made him kiss her BUTT?!"_

Hank wondered what kind of grandmother would not just allow but _make_ an eleven year old boy read anything as dirty as "The Miller's Tale," but if that was the way she wanted to teach him it wasn't his place to gainsay it, and he suspected it wouldn't do the kid any irreparable harm. Not like his home life wasn't doing plenty, Hank couldn't help but think.

Finally the boy broke out giggling, and covered his face with his hand. "Oh. My. That's just…that is so _wrong," _he said, through the giggles. "Honestly, Chaucer makes Stephen King look like high culture."

_The kid has read Stephen King?_ Hank thought, in some mild alarm. He couldn't imagine an eleven year old reading _Carrie_ or _The Shining_, but supposed it really wasn't any worse than Chaucer.

Maybe.

"You've read…Stephen King?" Hank asked, because dammit, he had to know.

"Oh yeah," the boy said. "Gramma's a fan. She makes me read everything he comes out with, just the minute it comes out, at least once she's done with it. She says it'll put hair on my chest. I'm going to have a _really _hairy chest, Hank."

Hank laughed, despite himself. "Do you like it?"

"It's not bad. I figure it's like most everything else: I'll 'get' it more when I'm older. Gramma believes that having the _ability _to read something means you _should, _regardless of age, and she says I have the ability despite my dyslexia, and she has a point. It's not impossible, just tough. Once I figure out what the letters are, I understand most of the words and what I don't understand I can figure out by context. But King writes a lot of stuff about men and women that I don't totally get just now. Like in _Carrie. _I _still _don't know why she was bleeding in the shower, or why the other girls teased her about it."

Hank cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, Binky. You'll…you'll understand that when you're older."

The boy nodded once, like he thought so, and turned back to "The Miller's Tale." "Thanks for this, Hank. Now that I know what's going on, I can write a decent book report about it. Gramma will expect me to be very serious about it, which is funny considering the story just is _not _serious At All, but I don't think I'll be able to help being just a little bit of a wiseacre about it. I mean, come on, the guy sticks his butt out the window for a kiss, farts in the guy's face, and gets his butt branded with some kind of hot iron? I get the moral, but who could resist making a crack or two?"

"_What is _the moral, Binky?" Hank honestly had no clue.

"Well, Nicholas and Allison were going behind the carpenter's back, being deceitful, and like all liars, Nicholas paid for it…'in the end.'" The boy chuckled. "The poor carpenter paid, too. Broken arm and a ruined reputation. I guess the secondary moral would be, 'don't marry an eighteen year old girl.'"

Hank laughed. "Sounds like sage advice to me."

The boy pulled a notebook out of his schoolbag and hopped down off the high bed. He went over to the desk and sat down, and immediately started scribbling away like a man possessed. Hank chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw the boy printed in neat block letters, clear and legible and doubtless easier for his dyslexic brain to understand upon rereading. Hank thought the boy really had an awful lot stacked up against him. God had put this little Job to the test in a big way, which hardly seemed fair, but who ever said God was fair?

He didn't want to disturb the boy, but he was curious. "Are you a man of faith, Binky?" he asked.

The boy put down his pencil and looked up. "You mean, do I believe in God? Yeah, I guess so. I don't think about Him much when I'm not in church, though. I suppose that's bad, but that's kind of the way my family is. We're Catholic on Sundays and holidays, and the rest of the time we're perfect heathens."

"I don't reckon God minds how much you think about Him, long as you try to live by His law even when you don't think about Him," Hank said.

The boy rolled his eyes. "I wish our parish priest thought like that, Hank. I truly do."

"Priests _have_ to tell you God lives in church. That's how they make their living."

The boy laughed and picked up his pencil again. Hank watched him scribble awhile longer before he broke the silence again. "You won't be goin' to your church tomorrow. Second week in a row."

The boy dropped his pencil again. "I know. It feels kind of weird. Mom actually said…she said that…that I don't _need_ church as much as my brother and sister. I really don't know what she meant."

Hank had an inkling, but he didn't want to say anything. He didn't know the boy well enough to say anything, but he thought, he truly did, that the boy probably _didn't_ have as much need of church as the average child. No amount of preaching would make the boy lead a more lawful life. The boy was lawful on his own, just because he knew in his heart that it was the only way to be.

"We've got a little church here in town, you know," Hank said. "Non-denominational, of course. Services every Sunday. Mostly for the townsfolk, of course, but tourists sometimes stop in for a listen and a prayer. You could go to it, yourself, if you thought you wanted to."

"Do you go?" the boy asked.

Hank shook his head. "I've always been more the type to find my sermons in the stones," he said. "And I think the preacher's kind of a…well, kind of a prick."

The boy laughed and took up his pencil again. "I think I'll pass, then, Hank."

Hank laughed, too. "You could go see for yourself."

"I trust your judgment, Hank."

Hank sat, the soul of patience, while the boy finished up his book report. When he finally threw down his pencil and sat back with a heavy sigh of relief, the boy said, "Well, it's done. I am _not_ going to check it for spelling errors, though I'll be damned for it surely. I have had more than enough of 'The Miller's Tale.'"

"Maybe we could get Miss Chelsie to check it over for you," Hank suggested slyly. "She's a good speller, you know. Won a ribbon in the annual spelling bee back home."

The boy laughed. "I'll check it myself later," he said. "Tonight, maybe, when I'm supposed to be sleeping but probably won't be."

"I hope you'll at least _try_ to get some sleep, Binky," Hank said. He stood up. "But for now, let's get out of here, what do you say? It's a crime and a sin for a healthy boy to be stuck inside doing book reports on a beautiful summer day, especially at Old Sonora."

"You don't have to tell me twice, Hank," the boy said, getting up from the desk chair. "Er…what are we going to do?" Because clearly the sheriff intended to do _something _with him.

"I hadn't thought. What do _you_ want to do?" Hank asked.

The boy looked surprised, and Hank wondered if anybody, or any adult at least, had ever asked him that simple question before. Then he looked hesitant. "Could we…ride horses again?" he asked shyly.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Hank said, and let the boy lead the way out of the room.

At the stables, the boy insisted he could get into the saddle without a boost. It was a struggle, for the placid mare Hank gave him to ride was quite tall, but the boy kept trying and Hank was as pleased as he was when he finally made it. Hank climbed onto his own horse and they turned the animals' heads towards the outliers of the property. The boy was comfortable enough in the saddle that Hank felt they could make conversation as they rode.

"Did you read _Call of the Wild?" _he asked.

"Yup. Did this week's book report on it," the boy said, brightly.

"Wha'dja think of it?" Hank asked.

The boy's face clouded over slightly. "I liked it, but…"

"Somethin' wrong, Bink?"

"I know Buck was going wild, little by little, but when he met John Thornton, I thought that would stop. Thornton _loved_ him, he was a _good_ master, but Buck still ran off into the forest and because of that, he wasn't there when the Indians killed Thornton."

"If he'd been there, he'd be dead, too," Hank said, mildly.

"Then he should have been dead," the boy said, quite staunchly. "If _I_ had a Thornton in my life, I'd _gladly_ die to protect him."

"Loyalty's a good quality, Binky, but it bothers me more than a little to hear you compare yourself to a _dog," _Hank said.

The boy was silent. He could not explain to this man who'd been kind to him, who was, dare he think it, possibly something of a John Thornton himself, that he empathized more closely with the canine heroes of _The Call of the Wild _and _White Fang _than he did the human heroes of any other book he'd ever read. Their emotions were raw, primal, as he so often felt his own were. Their lives were touched with the same primal chaos he felt in his own. And yes, he felt more than a bit like a wild animal, trapped in a cage and poked with sticks. Taunted and laughed at, driven wild with barely contained rage, rage that would release itself upon anything unfortunate enough to be in its path when the cage was opened.

Yeah. He wouldn't be explaining that any time soon, as sympathetic as Hank's ear might be.

"I just…feel like…Buck should have fought for him," the boy said at last. "Defended him. Sure, all he would have done was get himself killed, too, but that kind of love is worth it. Isn't it?"

"You tell me, Bink."

"And then he just…walked away. Turned around and ran back into the forest. I know he's a dog, but by God, that was just so…_cold. _Like Thornton never really mattered to him. Like his death was just another thing that happened to Buck he could shake off."

"A lot had happened to Buck. A lot of life, a lot of death. Maybe it _was_ just another thing."

"I can see becoming hardened to death. Inured. But before Thornton, all that death was pretty impersonal. He wasn't friends with Curly, or the other sled dogs that died. He _hated_ Spitz. He certainly didn't care about Charles or Hal or Mercedes, and everybody else that passed in and out of his life was really no more than an associate, but Thornton was _his_. He _loved_ Thornton. He was prepared to jump off a _cliff_ at Thornton's word. And he _still_ just…walked away. I don't ever want to become that inured. If I lost somebody I loved, I'd _want_ it to hurt. I'd want it to hurt like…like _hell." Like it hurt when I lost Grampa,_ he thought, but didn't say.

Hank thought to caution the boy about his language, but decided that was pointless and kind of stupid, like telling a forty year old man not to swear. "Maybe it _did_ hurt, Bink. There just…wasn't nothin' he could do about it."

The boy nodded. "Yeah. Maybe."

"So, you think you like _White Fang _better?" Hank asked, dryly.

The boy chuckled. "Well, let's just say that the ending of _White Fang _made me happy, while the ending of _The Call of the Wild _made me sad. I mean, I can understand Buck's draw. To be free, to be his own master, to do his own thing in his own place on his own time…jeez, that would be…_incredible. _But I wouldn't give up love for freedom."

"You know where you stand, Binky. Lots a' men don't."

They continued their ride, a slow circuit of the property, and when they neared the parking lot they heard the unmistakable sound of a rattletrap car backfiring. And the mare, chosen for the boy specifically because she never shied, inexplicably shied. The boy slipped off her backwards and landed hard on one shoulder, with a hoof clipping him pretty solidly in the back on the way down. Hank was out of the saddle in an instant, but the boy was already back on his feet, and dusting himself off.

The horse, who had stayed perfectly still after shying, looked around behind herself at her former rider almost apologetically, and Hank would have sworn she looked embarrassed, too. The boy, for his part, was clearly trying _not_ to look embarrassed.

"You okay, Bink?" Hank asked, knowing that at the very least there was going to be one hell of a hoof-shaped bruise on the boy's back.

The boy nodded vigorously and sucked in a deep breath - he'd clearly had the wind knocked out of him at least. "I'm fine, Hank," he said, when he could manage it.

"How's yer shoulder?" Hank pressed on it gingerly, thinking the boy might have broken his collarbone at least. There was a "doctor," of sorts, in Old Sonora, but it wasn't exactly easy to get swift emergency medical care out here.

"It's fine. Little sore, but nothing's broken," the boy said.

"And yer back?"

"Fine."

"Lift up yer shirt, let me take a look."

The boy sighed, rolled his eyes, but complied. There was already a marvelous imprint limned in red flesh on his back, on top of the fading bruises from the beating his father had given him, but when Hank touched the spot the boy didn't even wince, which he would have expected even if it was only going to be a bruise.

"Land sakes, Binky, you have a high threshold for pain," he exclaimed.

"Thank you," the boy said.

"That wasn't entirely a compliment," Hank said. "I shudder to think just how you acquired that threshold so young. Still, I wouldn't expect you could be so stoic if anything was broken."

"I'm fine, Hank. Yeah, it hurts a little, but you've just got to suck it up, right?"

"I dunno, Binky. I suppose on the one hand it's good not to be whiny, but I've often found that a good loud holler can make you feel better, faster."

The boy muttered something. Hank wasn't sure what he said, but it sounded kind of like _I wouldn't give the bastards the ammunition._

No, that couldn't be what he'd said. Although…if he read Stephen King, there was no doubt he _knew_ words like that. Yes indeed.

Worse than the curse was the notion that the boy already felt he needed to protect himself so fiercely that he couldn't even allow himself to show a moment's pain. What kind of home did this child live in?

"I…expect you've had enough of horses for today," Hank said, pushing his thoughts aside.

"No. Let's keep going."

Hank looked at the boy in surprise. "You sure? You've gotta be hurtin'."

"Aren't you _supposed_ to get right back on the horse?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, but that can be later in the _week. _It doesn't have to be right away."

"Later in the week I won't have the opportunity." The boy returned to the stirrups and hove himself into the saddle. The horse whickered softly and shook her head, as if in approval.

Hank grinned and remounted his own horse. Independent, determined, and just possibly _cussed_ little cuss. He liked it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

**A/N:** I probably don't need to say this, because I've gotten no complaints (yet), but I do not advocate small children reading Stephen King or like stories. I, personally, do not labor under the disadvantages of dyslexia, and in fact I learned to read early and quite well (the only thing at which I ever really excelled). My father held Lassiter's _grandmother's _opinion that _ability to read _equals _should read, _and encouraged me to read books far over my head in terms of maturity, including Stephen King, whom he never actually read himself but whom he did say would put "hair on my chest." Fortunately for me (I am female), he was wrong. I read my first Stephen King novel at age five. It was _Cujo. _I had already read _The Call of the Wild_ and _White Fang _(which, if you can't tell, were and remain two of my all-time favorite novels, read to the point of memorization), and it was a book about a dog. Lassiter can't have read _Cujo_ yet, since it was published the year after the current storyline, but he has read _Salem's Lot, _which is worse by far. I will say again, I do not advocate letting small children read such novels. I will _also _say that I don't believe the experience did me any harm (abbadeeabbadeedeeabbadeeabba), but I will further admit that I learned things I really shouldn't have learned that early in life (in _Cujo_ there is a scene where a man jacks off onto his married mistress's bed). It's just one more way I felt I could easily have life screw with Lassy's head. Not that you asked, but _Cujo_ didn't scare me off of Stephen King, and I remain a fan to this day. That out of the way, this chapter is kind of a short interlude, but I found out I had more to say about this particular weekend in Old Sonora that I didn't think of last time.

* * *

**Best I Ever Had**

"You got any friends, Binky?"

"Kenny Marshall." No hesitation, not one iota. "He lives across the street from me. We've been friends since we were babies, practically."

"Anybody else?"

The boy shook his head. "Not really. _Kenny_ has other friends. He'd be a lot more popular if he stopped hanging around with me. I'm weird."

"Now, what makes you say that?"

"Other kids do. I'm not like them. I don't dress like they do, or really talk like they do, or do many of the things they do. My family is lower-class and my dad's always drunk or in jail, so their parents talk about us and tell their kids not to hang around me. Because of course, I must be _just like him_. I don't think I'll ever live him down. And then there's mom. Neighborhood gossip is she's crazy, and they're not _entirely_ wrong. She's…paranoid. Like, she thinks popsicles contain mind controlling drugs, so she won't let us eat them. And if she doesn't take her medicine, which she can be counted on not to do fairly frequently, she hears the radio talking to her - even when it isn't on. So, of course, I must be _just like her, _too."

Spoken in tones not of anger but of weary resignation.

"That's tough, Binky," Hank said, in commiseration.

The boy picked his head up. "But things are looking up. I helped save one of the neighborhood kids from a kidnapper last Sunday, and since then the neighbors have been acting like they expect a little better of me. I don't expect it to last, but it's nice while it does."

"You did _what_ now?" Hank asked in surprise, and so the boy once again related the tale of the attempted kidnapping. He did not leave out the part about the round of applause he'd received, or the words Officer Spencer had said to him - how he didn't believe he was anything like his father, words he'd been dying to hear someone say to him practically all his life.

"He said I could be a good cop someday, Hank. And that's what I want. I know that now. I want to be a cop." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black plastic wallet and flipped it open to reveal a plastic badge. "He gave me this, said it would do 'til I got a real one. And I will, Hank. And all the people who think I _won't _- that I _can't_ - can go spit."

"I believe ya, Binky," Hank said.

The boy tossed his head. "After all, why not? My Aunt Carolyn's a cop. If _she_ can pull herself out of the Big Crazy of our family, so can I. I just have to work hard, that's all. I'll save people from bad guys so _nobody _has to hurt. _Protect and serve."_

"Good, Binky. That's a good goal to have. Sounds like you want to be a cop for the right reasons."

The boy sighed and shook his head. "A modicum of respect wouldn't be such a bad thing, either, though I shouldn't make it part of my reasons. I can't help it. I don't want people to look at me and see me as the spawn of Sean Carlton Lassiter. I want to be my own man, judged on my own merits. And faults."

"You will be, Binky. When you're little, it's easy for folks to paint you with the same brush as yer folks, but when you've grown, you'll show 'em who you really are."

"I just hope I'm mostly _good."_

"You will be, Binky. The fact that you _want _to be says everything there is to say about it."

"I hope you're right, Hank. But I feel like I have to fight against an awful lot just to qualify as 'kinda good.'"

"Everybody does, Bink. Everybody does."

"You've just got to keep fighting, right?"

"Right. Gets tiresome, I know, but it's worth the effort."

The boy went silent, leaning against the lower rail of the corral fence as they watched the horses. Hank leaned against the upper rail and was silent as well, watching, but he didn't mind the talk. He'd never really found anyone with whom he could just…talk. About anything. Or nothing. He had a feeling the boy felt the same. He felt…_connected._

How strange, this sense of connection with, of all things, an eleven year old boy. But Hank knew he wasn't much like other eleven year old boys. He had…an old soul. Not that Hank believed in hippie-dippy things like reincarnation, but…yeah. Of course, the boy had clearly had to grow up in a hell of a hurry, and that was a terrible thing. But the results weren't all that bad. Another boy might have taken the same experiences and become twisted, maybe even evil, but this boy seemed to want his experiences to be the foundation for a life of good works, if he stuck with this ambition to be a cop.

Hank had a strong feeling he would. This was a boy who didn't easily change his mind once it was made up.

_I'll save people from bad guys so _nobody_ has to hurt. __Protect and serve__._

_It's just too bad nobody seems to be protectin' _you, _Binky._

Hank would change that if he could, and he supposed, within the limited context of these weekend visits - if they continued - it was within his power _and_ responsibility to see to it that the boy _was_ protected. He just wished there was something he could do about the rest of the week. It was too early yet to say that he _loved_ the little ankle biter, but on the other hand, it _wasn't_ too early, because he _did._ If he ever had a child of his own, which admittedly didn't seem likely at this point, he'd want him to be just like the boy.

Smart. Tough. Determined. Good-hearted.

Traits that, come to think of it, would be good for a son or a daughter.

Hank looked down at the boy, who was consciously or unconsciously mimicking his leaning posture, with his right foot thrown out across his left foot and his chin on his folded arms, and felt a wave of simple affection for him, as strong as any feeling he had ever felt. Hank had never really even realized that he was lonely until this small boy stumbled into his life. But then, "stumbled" was the wrong word, and he knew it. _Galloped, _maybe. No, that wasn't right, either. _Sidled_. That was closer. As much trust as the boy had put in him, there was still something feral about him, like he was a half-tamed animal cringing away from human contact. He clearly knew enough about human kindness to crave it, but it was obviously rare enough in his existence that he didn't fully trust it.

Hank didn't need to be told that the trust of this child was a rare and wonderful gift. He vowed to himself that he would never break it. That he would earn it fully, unquestioningly, if given the chance. He hoped he would have that chance. Give him the weekends. It was time enough. Time enough to make some kind of _impact _in this young life. Give the kid some good memories to hang his hat on.

The boy clearly shared Hank's interest in history, and as they stood and watched the horses Hank recounted tales of the lives of famous Western lawmen and the scoundrels they chased. The boy listened without feigning his interest, and showed a marked predilection for the lawmen over the outlaws. He was openly disdainful of any remark that made an outlaw seem heroic.

"Jesse James robbed trains and banks. That's wrong. I don't care how _polite_ he was about it."

"He fought with Quantrill during the Civil War," Hank said.

"And my great-great grandfather Colonel Muscomb T. Lassiter fought _against_ Quantrill at the battle of Piper's Cove Kentucky in 1864. You're not going to get me on his side with that one, Hank."

Hank laughed. "You're all law, Binky. That's good to see. Have you ever read the story 'If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox?' By James Thurber."

"Can't say as I have, Hank."

"You should give it a shot. It's funny as hell. Grant goes on a bender the night before the surrender, and ends up surrendering to Lee."

The boy gave him a narrow look. "Hank…are you a Johnny Reb?" he asked, suspiciously.

Hank laughed again. "Would that be a deal-breaker if I was?"

The boy turned his face back to the horses. "No. I'd get over it."

Hank clapped him on the shoulder. "Glad to hear it. You damn Yankee."

* * *

**A/N:** I shamelessly stole the idea that Lassy's mother is paranoid to the point of believing ice cream contains mind controlling drugs from TheRealAlyshebaFan's wonderful "The Babysitters." Read it if you haven't, and if you can stand to see Shawn get taken down a few pegs.

**Further A/N and then I'll shut up I swear: **To the anonymous "Guest" who suggested that I watch porn instead of "inflicting this trash" on the reading public: Lassie's not _in_ porn, so that suggestion doesn't really appeal to me at all. And if you had bothered to read the story, or indeed just the summary, you would have known that this is Not That Kind of Lassie Story. (I know the summary doesn't give away much, but it _does _clearly state that this is about Lassiter as a child.) Now "Objects…" that _is_ that kind of Lassie story. And I know you'll never read this, because you'll never read the story, but I had to say it anyway, because I'm half Italian and roughly half Irish (mixed with just a dash of Mohawk), so you could say I'm _genetically outspoken._ Plus, I do _try_ to respond to people who take the time to review my work. (Yes, that was intentionally snarky. But also true, within the constraints of my limited online time.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

* * *

**Coward of the County**

Days passed into weeks passed into months, and the boy's weekend visits to Old Sonora continued. He did not know why. The only explanation that made _any_ sense - the notion that his mother was, for some reason, giving him a _break_ - didn't make much sense in light of what he knew of his mother. It was, to say the least, out of character.

Not that he was going to complain about it.

He learned a lot from Hank on these visits. Lots of history, which was interesting, and lots about how to be a better rider - he was becoming downright accomplished on horseback - and even how to twirl a rope and toss a lasso. And on his fifth visit to the Old West town, Hank started teaching him the Holy Grail of skills, gun safety and how to shoot.

The first time he let the boy hold his 1873 Colt Peacemaker and taught him how to brace himself against the recoil, he gave the boy these words of advice; "Aim the barrel like you're pointin' yer finger. If ya do it right, you'll be somewhere near where you want yer bullet to go."

The boy held the gun out at arm's length, sighting down the barrel at a target paper posted against a thick pile of ancient fenceposts set up as a backstop. The barrel was tilted slightly downward, and Hank resisted the urge to move the boy's hand.

The boy felt the wrongness. Hank saw it in his face. He raised his hand slightly, and Hank thought, _By God, kid's got it. Already, he's got it._

"When you're ready, you _squeeze_ that trigger. You don't pull it - you _squeeze," _Hank said. It took quite a bit of pressure to fire the antique revolver, but he didn't doubt the boy had the strength.

"Feel yer breath…take 'em slow and steady. Be as calm and steady as the Rock of Ages. Take it slow. Whenever yer ready."

The boy's breathing evened out. Those blue eyes focused on the distant target, and Hank recognized the look in them. They were gunslinger's eyes, as calm and sharp and merciless as the western sun. The boy's finger tightened on the trigger, and with some effort, the revolver's loud voice rang out. Hank snapped a hand out to catch the gun before the recoil could smash the boy in the face - bracing only did so much for an eleven year old - and he took the gun and put it in his holster.

"Now let's see how ya did," he said, though there was little doubt in his mind. Together they walked toward the target.

Hank saw the hole long before they reached it, and a smile split his lips. Just about a hair's breadth from dead-center. The boy was a natural-born gunslinger, all right. Good thing he wanted to be on the right side of the badge. He'd probably make a hell of an outlaw, someday. He'd make an even better lawman.

"Look at that, kid. Yer a regular Daniel Boone," Hank said.

"You're related to him, right, Hank?" the boy asked.

"Tenebrously," Hank said, with a grin. "You ever gonna tell me how it is you happen to be related to Abraham Lincoln?"

The boy snorted a laugh. "I'm not. _Mom_ will tell you otherwise. The truth is that one of her distant relations married a cousin or _something_ of Mary Todd. Frankly, I find even that much a little hard to believe, but she claims it's true. All I know for sure is, both sides of my family have remained pretty strongly Irish despite having been in this country for four or five generations."

"You think you'll ever get to Ireland, see where you came from?" Hank asked.

"I doubt it. Be nice to go. Lot of history in a country like that. _Hard_ history, most of it, but that's the kind of thing that lingers."

Hank untacked the target paper from the backstop and handed it to the boy. "You might want to keep that," he said. "First shot, first bullseye; pretty good record for a punk-ass kid."

The boy tucked the paper inside his shirt. "Thanks, Hank. I'll hang on to it."

The next few weekends they did more shooting, and the boy's skill improved, the mechanics of aiming and firing becoming more natural to him. To facilitate this learning curve, Hank purchased a Ruger .22 handgun for the boy's especial use - a gun that didn't require much effort to fire and didn't kick like a balky mule.

The boy went back to school in the fall, and the weekend visits to Old Sonora did not stop. But it was when the boy started school again that Hank noticed something disturbing. The boy kept coming in with black eyes and bruises, his knuckles broken and bloody.

Hank didn't want to ask, but he had to. "Binky…is your dad out of jail?"

"No, Hank."

"Then where'ya gettin' all the bruises?"

"Hank, Dad would never hit me in the face. That's not his style."

Hank closed his eyes and shuddered, but let the comment go by. "Then whose style is it, Binky?"

The boy shrugged. "Just schoolyard bullies."

"You gettin' bullied?"

"Nope."

"I'm not followin' ya, kid."

"I don't get bullied, Hank. And I don't let anybody _else _get bullied, either."

"So, what? You see somebody pickin' on somebody else, you pitch into 'em?" Hank asked.

"Pretty much," the boy said, nonchalantly.

"Where do you go to school, Binky?"

"Saint Joseph's."

"Catholic school."

"Yeah."

"What do the nuns say about all these fights you get into?" Hank asked.

"Not a whole lot. They've stopped taking me to the doctor when my nose breaks. They just grab it and twist it back into line. Mom says she thinks it's starting to turn over to the left."

Hank winced. "You scare me just a little bit, Binky."

The boy made some apology and the weekend continued, but when Monday rolled around Hank did something he certainly never thought he'd do. He climbed into his Ford Custom pickup and drove to Santa Barbara to find Saint Joseph's Parochial.

It was a largish, neighborhood school, made of brick and somehow rather squat despite standing three stories tall. There was a large metal cross on the wall above the double doors, and a large Catholic church (Saint Joseph's) across the street. There were kids of many ages on the playground alongside the building, and teenagers lounged or played on the basketball court. Hank parked the truck across the street, took off his cowboy hat and left it on the passenger side of the bench seat, and climbed out.

He spent a moment looking at the houses around the school building. The boy probably lived not too far away. Looked like a nice neighborhood, quiet (except for the school) with generally rather small, older houses. Turn of the century houses. He remembered, with the quirk of a grin, the boy telling him that the house he lived in had been the neighborhood slaughterhouse prior to 1901.

Hank crossed the street and entered the school, feeling very much like an interloper in enemy territory. Part of this, he knew, came from having been raised Baptist, but mostly it came from the fact he was a grown man who _did not have a child. _He really had no business being here.

He found a passing nun and asked of her whom he should speak to for questions about a particular student, and was directed to the Mother Superior's office. He knocked on the closed door, more than a little nervous, and heard a woman's voice bid him enter from inside.

He opened the door and stepped into the surprisingly small room and stood before the remarkably large desk therein. He couldn't help but wonder how they ever got it in through the door. A tiny woman in a nun's habit sat behind it, square-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. She folded her hands on the blotter and looked at him over the top of them.

"And who might you be?" she asked.

Hank's hands twitched at his sides. If he had his hat, he'd be turning it in his hands. If he were wearing his gun he might have been tempted to unholster it and give it a nervous twirl. He forced himself to stand still under her piercing gaze and answer.

"Hank - er, _Henry_ Mendel, Ma'am. I own Old Sonora, outside of town."

"The Wild West town," she said.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And what can I do for you, Mr. Mendel?" she asked.

"I'm…_curious_…about a…student," he said, through a dry mouth. "You have a lot of students, I know, but maybe you can point me to somebody that knows him, one of 'is teachers, maybe. His name's Carlton Jebediah Lassiter."

"Ah, yes. CJ."

"You know 'im?" Hank asked, surprised.

"I know my troublemakers, Mr. Mendel."

"_Troublemakers?"_

"Does that surprise you?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Not that you know 'em, but that you count him among 'em, yes."

"I suppose he strikes you as a good boy," the Mother Superior said. "Well, the truth of the matter, Mr. Mendel, is that he _is_ a good boy. But he's still a troublemaker."

"Because of the fighting," Hank said.

"We don't condone _brawling_ at Saint Joseph's, Mr. Mendel. That said, it's hard to know how to punish him when he only fights in the defense of others. God hates a bully, Mr. Mendel, and so does CJ Lassiter. For the most part, we've allowed the bruises and black eyes to stand as their own punishment, not that they seem to dissuade him at all."

"He just…_picks fights _with bullies?"

"Essentially. And it's likely to be the death of him. The boy knows no fear, and he's equally likely to tear into an upperclassman as someone from his own grade. Just this past week I had the parents of a fifteen year old boy in here, angry and asking me what was being done about the bully who beat up their precious child. When I showed them that the 'bully' in question was an eleven year old boy they didn't have much left to say."

"Tell me he doesn't beat up on _little_ kids," Hank said.

Mother Superior smiled thinly. "No, he doesn't. When he encounters a bully from the lower grades, he gives them a good stern talking-to. I wish he'd take that tack with _all_ the bullies. At least _attempt_ it, before the first punch is thrown."

"Have you…_talked_ to him about it?" Hank asked.

"Of course I have, many times. But CJ Lassiter is, above all things, a _willful_ child. Not deliberately disobedient, but when he takes it into his head that he's in the right, and it is hard to argue that he isn't at least _partially_ in the right, it's very difficult to convince him to take a different approach. Then, too, he's not the most trusting child. Having him in my office is very like playing host to some wild creature, reasonably well-behaved but ready to raise havoc at the slightest hint of danger."

"Yeah, I…I know what you mean."

"What is your interest in CJ Lassiter, Mr. Mendel?" Mother Superior asked.

Hank shrugged. "The boy comes up to Old Sonora on weekends, and we've spent a lot of time together. It worried me that he keeps comin' in with black eyes and such. He kinda told me about it, but I guess it's kind of a hard story to believe - even though I've never known the kid to lie to me."

Mother Superior nodded. "You can generally trust CJ to tell the truth. Just how much do you know about his home life?"

"Too much. I was kinda wonderin' the same thing about you," Hank said.

Mother Superior sighed and shook her head. "An unfortunate situation all around. I'm sure I don't know the full extent of it. His father's in jail - almost perpetually - and his mother works. She does make an effort on CJ's behalf, comes in for parent-teacher conferences. But for the last few years, when it came time for CJ's _sister_ to have parent-teacher conferences? _CJ_ has been the only one to show up for them. I don't know whether to expect more of the same now that his little brother is coming to school here."

"Isn't there…_anything_ you can do?" Hank asked, helplessly.

"We can call Child Protective Services, but their solution would be to break up the children into separate foster homes. I don't think that would be good for Geena and Lincoln or CJ himself. They need him, and quite frankly, he needs them. He needs someone to protect."

"Yeah," Hank said, dryly. "I…kinda got that impression myself."

It hovered on Hank's lips to tell about the beating whose testimony he'd seen printed on the boy's back, or the cool admission, _"Dad would never hit me in the face, Hank. That's not his style."_ He was stayed by the simple fact that the school probably _would_ call in CPS if they found out about physical abuse, and breaking up even a neglectful family was something Hank couldn't bring himself to do, especially with the abuser in jail. As long as he stayed there.

Hank made his escape from the Mother Superior's office and left the school, and drove back to Old Sonora deeply perturbed. He had to do something about all these fights the boy got himself into, before he got himself killed. But what?

By the time the weekend rolled around and the boy showed up on Hank's turf again, he knew what to do. He didn't know it would work, but at least it was a plan. He took the boy up to his house above the business office, where he'd never taken him before. The reason he crossed this particular line was because Hank's house had electricity, and a hifi player.

"Have you heard this one before, Binky?" Hank asked, as he put a record on. Kenny Rogers' weathered voice began to sing about the "Coward of the County." The boy listened intently to the story ballad about the man whose deathbed promise to his father caused the people around him to see him as yellowbellied. The boy's eyes grew wide when he heard about the assault of his wife. When the song ended, Hank turned off the record player.

"What do you think about that song, Bink?" he asked.

"It makes me mad," the boy said. "If he'd fought before, those men would never have…have _hurt_ Becky."

Hank nodded. "You're probably right. But Binky, it's not right to fight _all the time_. A man's gotta know where to draw the line. Sure, the man in the song _never _stood up for himself, and his wife paid the price for that, but his father wasn't wrong to make him promise not to lead the kind of life he'd led. He just took it too far. And I think, maybe, you're takin' yer own inclinations a little bit too far."

The boy flinched back, as if from a blow. "What do you mean, Hank?"

"I mean all the fightin' you do, Bink. It's gotta stop. It's good that you stick up for folks, but defending the little guy doesn't _always_ have to be done with the fists, does it? You've gotta learn a little restraint. There's times a man _has_ to fight, and you should always stand up for yourself and for others, but fighting…fighting has gotta be a last resort, Binky. It's like, when you're a cop. You can't just shoot everyone, no matter what bad thing they're doing. You've got to try and talk 'em down, first."

The boy flinched again. "Okay, Hank. I guess I see what you mean."

"I'm glad. You're a good boy, Binky, but you were headin' in the wrong direction. A direction just a little too similar to the one yer Daddy walks."

The boy's eyes popped wide open. "You think…you think I'm like my _Dad?"_

"No, Binky, I don't. But I think he's set a bad example for you to follow all the same."

"I am _nothing_ like my father. I don't hit little kids or women, and I don't make sure all the bruises are hidden. I'm not a _coward_ like he is."

"Calm down, Binky. I know you're not. I know that. But the fact remains that your Daddy bein' free with his fists has taught you to be free with yours, and all I'm sayin' is you'd be well-served to learn a little restraint. That's all."

The boy was clearly still agitated, but he slowly calmed. "Okay. Okay, I see what you're saying, Hank. The nuns and Mother Superior at school have told me pretty much the same thing, I guess, but I wasn't really hearing them. You're right. Fighting all the time _is _too much like my father. It makes me a bad person, and it would make me a bad cop."

"You're not a bad person, Binky," Hank said.

"I'll tone it down, Hank. Make it a last resort, like you said."

"Good, Binky. I'm glad to hear it."

Hank led the boy back out into the sunshine, but though he let the subject drop he hoped the boy would remember and keep his promise.

* * *

**A/N:** When my Dad (an expert marksman and rifle instructor with the US Army) taught me to shoot, he taught me the same way Hank teaches Lassiter - aim the barrel like you're pointing your finger, and you'll be pretty close to dead on. It's harder than it sounds, but as soon as you "get" how to aim the gun as if it were, in fact, an extension of your hand, you do, indeed, fire pretty much dead on. My first "bullseye" was actually the ribbon circle of a Pabst beer can. I still have that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

* * *

**Puppy Love**

Over the days that followed, the boy learned that the urge to violence was stronger in him than he'd believed. What Hank had said convinced him that that urge was a bad thing, for the most part, and he was dismayed to feel it rising up inside of him. But he was able to restrain it in himself by the simple expedient of promising himself to never again throw the first punch. It was hard, at times, but he stuck with it, and as weeks went by he remained unbruised. His schoolyard reputation was strong, and this sudden restraint was fairly welcome to the bullies he'd terrorized - even the ones very much bigger than him. The old schoolyard mantra, "Don't let Lassiter catch you pickin' on that nerd," fell by the wayside. "Don't pick a fight with Lassiter," became the new mantra of the playground. The addendum to this mantra was the same as the old: "He's _crazy."_

School was very much as usual otherwise. Math was hard - dyslexia played hell with numbers - but he did his work carefully and meticulously and managed to keep his grades high. Everything else was comparatively easy, thanks in no small part to the relentless training he received at his grandmother's hands. She finally finished up the latest novel from Stephen King - _Firestarter_ - and turned it over to him to read. A story about a child with power - _any_ kind of power - had particular appeal.

It didn't even bother him that the book was about a little girl. And he didn't miss the faint tickle of connection he felt with her. Her name was Charlie, and that was pretty close to Carly, which is what Grampa had always called him. Being pursued by a shadowy government agency brought his mother's paranoid speculations to mind - never far from it, honestly, and he shared some of them despite telling himself that mother was, you know, a little bit _nuts._

Still, weekends were the highlight. Visiting with Hank, spending part of two days in a comfortable little bubble of something that felt like what _normal_ people had. He was glad Old Sonora didn't shut down at the close of tourist season, and it was even nicer then, because it was almost deserted by everyone but the actors, so there was far more freedom. Hank even let him do a shootout every now and then, after a bit of instruction on the fine art of the quick draw - though he knew he had to be careful, even with the big gun loaded with blanks.

The holiday season settled in on Santa Barbara, mostly unnoticed in the Lassiter household. They had a big Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey and green bean casserole and cranberry sauce, but that was the only tradition they maintained. They certainly didn't go the touchy-feely route of giving actual thanks for anything. Dad was still in jail and would be until well after the New Year, and that was all for the better. As November breezed into December they did not put up a Christmas tree or decorate the house. No one felt any anticipation over the imminent arrival of "Santa." Such lies were not told in the Lassiter house.

_School_ pushed Santa Claus, of course, as well as the more religious aspects of the holiday, and the boy found himself in the unwelcome position of playing Joseph in the annual Christmas pageant. Fortunately, with this being a Catholic school (named for the man or not), Joseph didn't really have much of a role to play and he certainly didn't have many lines. He was just supposed to stand by Mary and look supportive, and ask the innkeeper for a place to stay. He got the role strictly because he was taller and thinner than the other boys in his grade. Could have been worse. He could have had to play Rudolph, because for some reason the pageant wouldn't be complete without Santa Claus and reindeer and a rousing chorus of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Fortunately, the reindeer roles had gone to kindergarteners. Santa Claus was portrayed by a particularly corpulent eighth grader.

The boy really couldn't wait 'til ninth grade - the high school age students didn't participate in the annual Christmas pageant. They did an annual school musical, in which participation was strictly voluntary.

Meaning he wouldn't be volunteering.

As he stood around in rehearsals doing his best to look supportive without looking, you know, _stupid, _he had a lot of time to observe Mary, who was played by a rather pretty little girl from his grade that nevertheless he barely knew. Julie, her name was. Julie McCartney - no relation to the Beatle. She had reddish blonde hair and bright green eyes. There were freckles across her nose. The boy was not too young to feel a distinct sense of _woah_ when he looked at her. That was all. Just…_woah._

Yeah.

_Woah._

When he delivered his one line to the innkeeper, played by Kenny (who kept flubbing his one line, "There is no room at the inn"), he was supposed to have his arm around her shoulders. You know, _supportively_. He really did not want to do that. Not because of cooties, he'd pretty much decided girls _didn't _have horrible infectious diseases, but because…yeah. _Woah._

He was still too young for the sex scenes in the very grownup novels he read to do much more than embarrass him, but he was aware of sex, though still a little iffy on the actual mechanics of it, and aware that it was something that happened between grownups who loved each other (he was also aware that it happened between grownups who _didn't _love each other, like his parents, but that wasn't what he wanted for himself), and he knew that the family he wanted someday would in part entail having sex with whatever girl he ended up convincing to make a life with him. And Julie was…yeah. _Woah._

She was nice, too. Pretty much any other girl in his class would have turned their noses up at having to work closely with him on the pageant. He was weird, and they didn't like him. But she smiled at him quite prettily and shyly told him he had beautiful eyes, and though compliments to his eyes had always struck him as erroneous and kind of freaky he liked hearing that from her, yes indeed. He mumbled something about her eyes being pretty, too, and tried his damnedest not to blush - a losing battle.

Amy Steinbreck kissing him after he saved her from Uncle Joe was kind of nice - weird, but kind of nice. If Julie McCartney ever kissed him, he'd probably pass out.

Geena and Lincoln had their roles to play. Geena was a Herald Angel, which the boy found vaguely ironic, and Lincoln was an alien, because what was Christmas without aliens? His costume consisted of a black garbage bag with head and arm holes cut in it, a pair of googly-eye glasses, and a headband with two gold sparkly bobbles on springs for antennae. Made the boy happy he only had to deal with a brown robe, a tall walking stick, and a fake beard.

Rehearsals went kind of slowly, because people were constantly dropping out sick with colds or the flu. It seemed to be something of an epidemic, but the boy wasn't much worried. He rarely got sick, and when he did, he had a marked tendency to ignore it. True, this meant he was a vector for contagion, but he was still too young to think much about that. To his mind, sick days were for other people.

So when he started feeling…strange…he didn't pay much attention at first.

He stood next to Julie at rehearsal, his arm hovering around her shoulders - not quite touching - and he said his line to Kenny ("We need a room") and Kenny said his line back ("There is room - there is_ no room _at the inn") and then broke up giggling, and the boy whacked him (gently, a light thump on the arm that barely made it through the voluminous sleeve of his robe) with his walking stick and tried to ignore the strange hot flush that crept over him and the weak and trembly feeling in his limbs that, for once, had nothing to do with Julie and her _woah_-factor.

At least, he didn't think it did.

The end of rehearsal on Friday afternoon signaled the end of the school day, and the boy changed out of his costume, gathered his siblings, and met with Kenny for the four-block walk home. They talked about their roles as they walked. ("It's one little word, Kenny - 'no'. 'There is _no_ room at the inn.'" "So, how do you feel about putting your _arm_ around Julie McCartney?")

By the time they made it home the boy was oddly breathless. He ignored the disturbing little whistle in his chest as he parted ways from Kenny.

"Hey, are you going to Old Sonora this weekend?" Kenny asked.

"I never know that for sure, but it seems like I will probably," the boy said.

"You think if I ask my folks, I could go with you?"

The boy was surprised. "You don't like cowboys."

"I know, but all this stuff you've been doing sounds pretty cool."

"Well, I'm sure my mom wouldn't care. We leave pretty early in the morning, though."

"That's okay. I'll ask my folks. I'll talk to you later tonight after dinner to tell you what they say."

"All right."

Kenny bolted for his house and the boy unlocked the door of his. Kenny's mother would be there to greet her son when he burst enthusiastically through the door, but the boy's mother would not be home 'til late and the house was empty. Grandmother might come over after her shift at the restaurant where she worked part-time to supplement her retirement income - might - but otherwise they were pretty much on their own with regards to supper, seeing to any homework, and putting themselves to bed. Which meant it all fell on the boy to see to it these things were accomplished in a timely fashion.

He headed straight for the kitchen and looked around to see what he could make for dinner. The options were, as usual, limited to Sunday night leftovers (long gone by Friday), Eggos (God, he was sick of Eggos), oatmeal (so bland), and potatoes (he sometimes thought if he never saw another potato it would be too soon). If he could only _cook, _there were better options, for there was always food in the refrigerator. He stared from it to the gas stove for several long moments.

Screw it. There comes a time in a boy's life when potatoes and oatmeal just won't cut it anymore.

He threw open the refrigerator door and scanned the shelves. There was an open package of ground beef on one shelf and a bag of hamburger buns keeping fresh on another. He could fry up some hamburgers, right? Easy. He pulled the package of beef out and set it on the counter, then washed up his hands at the kitchen sink. He found a frying pan, put it on the front left burner of the stove, and pulled a wad of meat out of the package and began forming it into a patty.

"What are you doing?" Geena asked.

"Making supper," the boy said.

"You can't cook," she said.

"Try me," the boy said.

"You're gonna get in trouble. You're gonna burn the house down."

"I'm not gonna burn the house down," the boy said, but he quickly scanned the room to ensure there was nothing flammable within proximity of the stove. "Look, you want to eat real food, or do you want another damn microwaved potato?"

Geena gasped. "You cussed. I'm telling."

The boy shrugged. "Telling who? There's nobody here but us. Go ahead and tell. Mom doesn't care what I say anyway, and she cusses all the time."

"I'm telling," Geena said again, clinging to her fantasy of retribution, and scampered out of the kitchen, presumably to find someone to tell. She could tell Lincoln. He wouldn't care much, either.

The boy pressed out three patties of roughly equal size - kind of big, because he knew they'd cook down some. How much, he had no clue. He threw them in the big frying pan and futzed with the dial on the burner until he figured out the trick to lighting the spark for the gas. He got out a spatula and stood over the pan, just barely tall enough, and soon he heard the meat sizzling. He immediately attempted to flip a burger over, but the meat stuck to the pan and he thought _Oh crap, I was supposed to grease the pan, wasn't I?_

Soon, however, the fats in the meat cooked down and greased the pan naturally, and he was able to flip the burgers. He kept flipping them every few seconds, anxious that they not burn, but despite his constant fussing the meat cooked and eventually the patties were uniformly brown. He scooped them out onto a plate and turned off the burner. After thinking about it for half a second, he moved the frying pan onto one of the cool back burners, further away from Lincoln should the five year old come running through the kitchen.

It was so hot in the kitchen. The boy wondered how his mother and grandmother could stand to be cloistered over a hot stove all day long, and in the summertime, too. Maybe that was the real reason why they only really cooked once a week, because it was miserable work. He ran cold water at the sink and splashed his flushed face. Then he turned his attention back to fixing dinner.

He pulled buns out of the package in the refrigerator and thought some more. When his grandfather had grilled burgers for them, as he often did on a summer day, he used to butter the bun halves and grill them for a moment or two, which had made for seriously good burgers. But the boy took stock of how he felt - hot, and unbelievably weary - and decided that was just one step too much for his first time out. Next time, maybe.

He pulled out some American cheese slices and the bottles of Heinz ketchup and Geena's preferred French's yellow mustard and cobbled together what he thought were three respectable cheeseburgers. Not bad for a first try. They were kind of big, maybe.

"You guys, suppertime," he called, and Geena and Lincoln came in from the living room without complaint.

"Burgers! Yummy!" Lincoln said, surprised and pleased. Geena sat down at hers (discernable by the rim of yellow oozing out from under the bun) and eyed it suspiciously.

"It looks…done," she said.

"It _is_ done," the boy said. "Shut up and eat it."

Lincoln required no prompting to glom into his burger, and came up smiling happily with ketchup on his face. "It's good."

Geena took a tentative bite, chewed, and swallowed. She said nothing, which the boy took as positive. She swallowed a few more bites, then threw the burger back onto her plate with a cry of disgust.

"It's _pink," _she said.

The boy sighed. "You'd eat a steak that was pink inside," he pointed out.

"A burger is not a steak."

"_It's cow," _the boy said. _"Just eat it."_

Geena grumbled, but she ate it.

Lincoln was unfazed by the pinkness, and the boy actually thought his burger tasted pretty good, pink insides be damned. Would have been better if he'd buttered and grilled the buns. Oh well.

Clean up time, complicated by the pan full of still relatively hot grease. He got out the Maxwell House coffee can that sat beneath the kitchen sink for this purpose and flipped off the translucent plastic lid. He set the can down on the floor and maneuvered the pan into precarious position over it.

"You be careful," Geena said, close at hand. "The last thing you wanna do is spill that hot grease on the floor."

"No, the _last_ thing I want to do, Geena, is spill this hot grease on _you," _the boy said. "The _second_-to-last thing I want to do is spill it on the floor. Back off."

He carefully tipped the heavy - _startlingly_ heavy, should it really be that heavy? He was a big, strong boy - frying pan over the coffee can and managed to get the grease from pan to can with minimal spillage.

"You got grease on the floor," Geena pointed out, accusingly.

"And I'll get the grease _off_ the floor," the boy said. "All it'll take is a drop of Dawn."

"You can't put dish soap on the floor!" Geena said.

"You _can_ if you're trying to get grease off of it," the boy said. Honestly, he didn't know if this was true. He just knew that dish soap was the best way to clean cooking grease of which he knew.

He took the bottle of blue liquid off the sink and squirted the least possible amount on the floor where it was spattered with grease. He suffered a brief moment of panic, as he scrubbed with a wet dishtowel, when he thought that it would never stop sudsing, but with several rinsings he managed to clean the spot up. The wet, shiny surface of the otherwise dingy linoleum contrasted oddly with the rest of the floor.

"Now it just looks weird," Geena said.

"I'll mop the floor after we get the dishes done," the boy said, wearily. It wasn't even five yet, and already he wanted nothing more than to go to bed. He was glad he didn't have homework to contend with, not even a book report for Gramma.

Lincoln was too quiet. The boy went to check on his brother and found him happily engaged with his tinker toys. Relieved, the boy went back to the kitchen to start the serious business of cleanup. Geena dried and put things away while the boy reddened his hands in the hot water, washing off the pan and the few dishes they'd dirtied. Then the boy brought out the bucket and mop and cleaned the floor while Geena went into the living room to do her math homework at the boy's urging.

"Just get it done, so you don't have to worry about it this weekend," he said.

The boy scrubbed up 'til the old linoleum, a faded lemon color, gleamed like new. He cleaned up and put the supplies away, and dragged himself into the living room, running on sheer grit, it felt like, to check on his siblings. Lincoln had left his tinker toys sitting out while he sat beside his sister and did his own homework, a drawing.

"What'cha doing, Lincoln?" the boy asked.

"Homework," the little boy said.

"I see that, but what kind of homework? What are they making you do?"

"I have to draw my house and family."

The boy chuckled slightly, picturing a drawing that might well have come out of a Stephen King novel. "Oh yeah? Let me see what you got done."

The house was represented by a gray square outline with no doors or windows, with a brown triangle outline for a roof. Three stick figures stood outside it, each with blank, round faces and black squiggles for hair. Blue crayon denoted eyes, the only feature these stick people possessed.

"Who's that?" the boy asked, pointing to the first stick figure, whose hair stuck straight up in a manic sort of buzz.

"That's you," Lincoln said.

"Okay. So who's that?" the boy asked, pointing at the next stick figure, whose black hair was longer and squigglier.

"Geena."

"So that's you, right?" the boy asked, pointing to the last stick figure, whose hair was a duplicate of the first. Lincoln nodded. "Where's Mom?"

The little boy's face fell. "Oh. Yeah."

Lincoln stared hard at his drawing, then looked up at his big brother. "I don't…I don't want to put her in my picture," he said at last.

"Why not?" the boy asked.

"Because I want a _happy_ picture," Lincoln said. "We're happier when she's not here. Daddy too."

The boy's heart hurt. He rubbed Lincoln's hair, then planted a quick kiss on the top of his head. "Draw what you want, Lincoln, but be prepared for your teacher to ask _why_ you didn't put your parents in a drawing of your family."

None of anyone's business, as far as the boy was concerned, but any explanation Lincoln gave would be sufficient once parent-teacher conferences rolled around and the boy was once again the only one to show up for them. Kind of made Lincoln's parentless drawing make perfect sense. The boy didn't know why his mother was so cold towards his siblings. Maybe she expended what little bit of love she was capable of on him. Not fair to them, of course, but what could he do about it? Nothing, except try and make up the difference.

He knew all it would take, to end his family as he knew it, was the right word in the right ear. Hell, telling the right thing to Aunt Carolyn would be sufficient, there was no need to take it to strangers. But he knew how that worked. He, Geena, and Lincoln would be separated, sent to foster homes. Probably never see each other again. Geena might be okay with that, but Lincoln wouldn't be, and the boy wouldn't be, either. He knew he was as dependent on his siblings as they were on him. Being strong for them gave him a reason to be strong for himself. And as long as he could protect them, they didn't need to live anywhere else, right? As long as he could protect them.

The boy sat in the armchair closest to the front windows and tried not to fall asleep. Lincoln finished his drawing and returned to his tinker toys, playing quietly and happily. Geena closed her math workbook and stretched, yawning, then curled up on the couch to watch TV. The boy wasn't much interested in television. He liked reruns of _Bonanza_ and _Gunsmoke_ and _Have Gun Will Travel _but otherwise ignored the Idiot Box when it was on, especially since Geena preferred shows like _General Hospital _and _Days of Our Lives_.

"Hey, CJ - they're playing _Jaws_ tonight, limited commercial interruption," Geena said from the couch. Ordinarily the boy would have perked up at that. It was basically the only thing he and his sister could agree was worth watching. But tonight he was just too tired.

"You go ahead and watch, Geena. I don't feel like it," he said.

She looked at him quizzically. "You sick or something?"

"I might be, just a little. No big deal. Just kind of tired, is all. I just want to sit here and not have to pay much attention to anything. I'll listen, though."

She shrugged and turned back to the TV. "Suit yourself."

It was still an hour 'til the movie started, so Geena turned on a sitcom. The boy was uninterested in the continuing adventures of Rieger and Nardo and Louie and Latka, though he found it entertaining enough when there was nothing else going on, and he simply sat in the chair and dozed lightly, glad that neither Lincoln nor Geena required him to be on the go at this particular moment in time. He didn't feel like he had much "go" left. He was almost asleep when he heard a light tapping at the front window nearby.

He pushed it open. Kenny stood outside in the light of the streetlamp. "Hey," the boy said.

"Hey. Took 'em awhile to decide, but my folks finally said I can go with you tomorrow, if you go," Kenny said. "In fact, they said I could sleep over tonight, if it was all right with your mom."

"Mom won't be home 'til after nine, but she won't mind," the boy said. "Come to the door, I'll let you in. We were just about to watch _Jaws."_

"Awesome!" Kenny said. The boy closed the window and went to open the door. Kenny stepped inside and the boy closed and locked the door behind him. Kenny dropped a bag by the front door and went to sit on the couch next to Geena and the boy went to sit next to him on the other side, thinking perhaps he was in the mood for Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss after all. Geena turned it to the right channel and in a few minutes, after a preemptive round of commercials, the distinctive music began to play.

The boy had seen the movie in theaters when it first came out. He was only six at the time, but his mother and father hadn't thought anything about bringing him along, though they had left Geena with Grandma. It hadn't bothered him in the way it upset just about every other young Santa Barbaran, or even many of the adults. Mostly because, in all his life, he'd never been to the beach.

A fact that remained true to this day.

He watched with half his attention as the unfortunate Chrissie died without even the dignity of clothing between her and the teeth of the shark. Rotten way to go. Not so much the eaten by a shark part, but the naked bit. If he was ever eaten by a shark, which seemed fairly unlikely since he never went into the ocean, he'd at least want some shorts on.

As the story wound on he found he got a little bit more out of it than in previous viewings. Grandmother had made him read _Moby Dick _two weeks ago - he'd known it was coming sooner or later - and he saw the similarities between Ahab and the obsessive Quint.

Brody chummed the waters and the shark popped up off the stern of the _Orca_. Kenny jumped and grabbed hold of the boy's arm, and the boy grinned at him.

"You have seen this before, haven't you?" he asked.

"_Sure _I have," Kenny said, in a way that made the boy certain he was lying. "It's just…startling."

"_You're gonna need a bigger boat," _Brody told Quint. The boy laughed, as he always did.

"Are there really fish that big out there in the ocean?" Kenny asked.

"Not great whites," the boy said. "They can _potentially_ get that big, but nobody's ever caught one that size that I've heard of. But there are bigger fish in the ocean. Basking sharks and whale sharks. They don't eat people, though."

"I may never go swimming again," Kenny said, conversationally.

They watched the movie in silence until the men began comparing scars. When Quint told his story about the _USS Indianapolis_, Kenny spoke again. "Did that really happen?"

"What, the _Indianapolis? _Yeah," the boy said. "Grampa was in the Navy himself during the war - his ship was the _USS Iowa _- and he told me all about it. A lot of men died. Killed by sharks. They didn't send out an SOS before they sank."

"Well, that was stupid," Kenny said.

"They were on a top-secret mission, Kenny. They couldn't."

They watched again until the shark was tied off to the stern cleats of the _Orca_ and started pulling the boat around in the water.

"Could a shark really do that?" Kenny asked. "I mean, that's not a huge boat, but it's not a dinghy, either."

"Beats me," the boy said. "I doubt it, though. It's a movie. And the shark is not just a shark."

"Then what is it? SuperShark?"

"Well, yeah, because it's a movie, but it's more than that. It's a metaphor."

"Oh God, not a metaphor," Kenny said.

"I know, I know. But it is."

"Of _what?"_

"Man's pursuit of evil, I think. It's like in _Moby Dick_. Quint and Ahab both got so wrapped up in their pursuit of a monster, they didn't see that they became monsters just as much as what they were hunting."

The boy had yet to encounter Friedrich Nietzsche, but when he did, the line about staring into the abyss and the abyss staring back would resonate very clearly with him.

The movie progressed, and the shark ate Quint, which prompted an expression of surprise from Kenny. "I thought for sure he'd get the shark," he said.

"Taking the pursuit of evil to the extreme Quint took it is always ultimately self-destructive," the boy said. "Moby Dick got Ahab, too. Thing is…I'm not so sure it isn't worth it."

Kenny shot him a dark and quizzical look.

"I mean, not going after a _shark, _that's not worth it. A shark is just an animal, and can't really be evil, that's a human thing. A whale can't really be evil, either. But going after evil, taking it out of the world…that's worth just about any sacrifice. As long as you could keep yourself from becoming a monster in your own right."

"Going to be a _martyr_ when you grow up?" Kenny asked, a bit sarcastically.

"No, but if it came to that, I'd accept it."

Kenny settled in to watch the finale with a groan. "You're one weird kid, CJ. Barely alive and already you're plannin' how you want to _die."_

"Well, what's wrong with that? Everybody's gotta die somehow, sooner or later. I'd like mine to be _worth_ it, that's all."

"Shouldn't you be thinking more about how you want to _live?"_

"I am, Kenny. But the fact of the matter is that what I want to do with my life could possibly cause my death. I have to realistic about that."

"Gonna go out in a blaze of glory and gunfire, right?"

"Maybe."

Brody blew up the oxygen tank and the shark exploded and sank slowly to the bottom of the sea. Geena yawned as Brody and Hooper started paddling in to shore on the barrels. The boy sat forward.

"All right, time for bed," he said.

"CJ, it's early," Geena complained. "It's Friday night."

"_You're _yawning, _Lincoln's_ passed out asleep on the floor. It's time for bed. Come on. You know there's no sleeping in when mom's around."

"All right, all right."

Geena went to her room. The boy gathered up his little brother in his arms. Lincoln muttered and snuggled in his sleep but didn't wake. The boy turned to Kenny.

"You can stay in my room with me and Lincoln, but I wouldn't recommend it. The bed's not too big and Lincoln kicks. Your best bet would be to sleep out here on the sofa. I'll get you a blanket and a pillow. But that means you'll be out here when Mom gets home. She'll probably ignore you, as long as you don't call attention to yourself. Probably."

"Dude, you always talk about your mom like you expect her to do something horrible," Kenny said.

The boy shook his head. "Not do. _Say."_

The boy took Lincoln in to bed and returned. "I'll write a note to mom and post it on the door so you don't take her by surprise - that wouldn't be good for anyone." He got a couple of blankets and a pillow from the hall closet. "Here you go."

Kenny took the items and peered at him. "You feelin' okay, CJ? You kinda look…wiped."

"I kinda feel wiped, Kenny. I'm okay, though. Get some sleep. Morning'll come pretty early."

"Okay. See you in the morning."

The boy quickly scribbled out a Post-It and pasted it to the outside of the front door at what would be roughly eye-level for his mother. With the porch light on, she'd be sure to see it when she got in, dark as it was outside. Then he locked the door, shut down the lights inside, and went to bed. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." Also contains heavy spoilers for _The Metamorphosis_ by Franz Kafka.

* * *

**Poor Poor Pitiful Me**

The boy woke in the morning to the sound of his mother's harsh voice shouting for her children to get out of bed. This in and of itself was unusual - the boy _hated _being woken that way, and had long since developed an internal alarm clock that woke him up long before she started in. But the way he felt - like another _dozen _hours of sleep wouldn't even _begin_ to be enough - was remarkable.

"Dear God, just let me _die," _he muttered, just before rolling out of bed. Waking up late meant he had to wait for Geena to get her shower instead of snagging his first, like usual. Plus there was Kenny to factor in. The boy groaned as he picked out socks, slacks and underwear from his bureau drawers.

Kenny was waiting in line for the bathroom when he got there. "You look like crap," Kenny said.

"Yeah, well…you _are_ crap."

Kenny grinned, almost leering. _"You_…are _feces," _he said, in a low, serious voice, and both boys broke up laughing.

"What's so funny?" Lincoln asked, coming up from behind them.

"Nothing," the boy said.

"Just poop," Kenny said, in a whisper, and the boys broke up laughing again.

Geena came out of the bathroom, wearing a robe and her hair wrapped up in a towel turban, and rolled her eyes at them before disappearing into her room to dress with the door shut and locked. Kenny stepped aside.

"You go first, man," he said.

"No, you go, Kenny. Guests first."

"You sure? Okay." He disappeared into the bathroom and in a few moments the shower turned on inside again.

"You go next, Lincoln," the boy said. "I don't know that the hot water heater can handle an extra shower." It didn't hold out for five showers when Dad was home, but Dad took long showers.

So did Kenny, or at least that's the way it felt by the time the shower turned off and, some minutes later, he came out, dressed for the day with his blond hair sticking up in dark, damp spikes. The boy sent Lincoln in, who by this time was dancing with need for the toilet, and stood in the hall waiting and ignoring his own need to urinate. When it was his turn at last he heaved a sigh of relief, even though he had to help Lincoln dress first. He tucked him in, tied his shoes, and hoisted him a couple times by the straps of his OshKosh B'Gosh overalls before chivvying him out the door and locking it behind him with another sigh.

When he at last stepped under the shower spray, it was encouragingly warm. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all. He started washing up, hoping he could finish before the hot water ran out, but his luck was never so good. With a rattle of pipes, the water suddenly turned icy cold, and he gasped, his body rigid.

_Suck it up, suck it up, suck it up, suck it -_

Shivering, he finished his shower. He dried himself with the last towel - a hair towel - and dressed hurriedly. He still had to get everybody _breakfast._

It occurred to him to wonder how Geena and Lincoln ate while he was away at Old Sonora. Presumably Mother fed them, but he had a hard time imagining it. Maybe _Geena_ did it. That was kind of hard to imagine, too. A situation exacerbated when he got into the kitchen and found her sitting at the table with a fork in her hand and not even her _own_ Eggo underway in the toaster.

No, clearly _Mother_ must be doing the feeding, he thought, as he pulled frozen waffles from the package and pried them apart. Either that, or they weren't eating. Again, he felt a little tickle of guilt over these weekends away.

Kenny sat down. "What, _you've_ got to cook?" he asked.

"Mom works," the boy said.

"Who feeds her?"

"She does."

"But she won't feed _you?"_

"She _works."_

"Dude, that's messed up."

"It is what it is," the boy said, and put four waffles in the big toaster. He got out plates, forks, the butter and maple syrup. He ignored the feeling, felt many times before, that he was an unpaid and most importantly _unappreciated_ servant in his own home. This was just one more thing that had to be done, when you were the Big Brother. The fact that most Big Brothers of his tender age would find the level of his responsibilities a bit much never occurred to him, even with the fact he'd assumed those responsibilities - all of them - far younger still.

The four-slotted toaster popped up in quick succession - _Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! - _and the boy made up the waffles in a hurry, certain their mother would come into the kitchen soon berating them for taking too much time. He set one down before Lincoln, then Geena, then Kenny, and sat down with his own and started to eat.

"Is this all we're having?" Kenny asked. "I mean, nothing wrong with Eggos, but…kinda slim pickin's, ain't it? Especially with the way you guys eat come Sunday night."

"That's the only time we eat like that," the boy said. "The rest of the time we're just grateful to eat at all."

"How does your _mom_ eat between Sundays?" Kenny asked.

The boy shrugged. "I don't really know. I think she eats out a lot. There's always lots of take-out wrappers in the garbage."

"Geez Louise," Kenny muttered, and turned his attention to his Eggo. After a moment, he glanced up, almost like he didn't entirely want to look at the boy in that moment. "You know…you could probably come live at my house."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm serious. Mom and Dad wouldn't mind. They couldn't take all of you, I don't think, but heck, they _like_ you. You could come be _my_ brother."

The boy smiled nervously. "Kenny, dude…that would be cool, but…I can't _leave_. This is my home. This is my family. Good, bad, or ugly. It's just the way things are. The way they have to be."

Kenny shook his head. "I don't know, man. _Lot_ a' ugly, here. _Lot_ a' ugly," he said, unconsciously echoing words the boy remembered Kenny's father saying months ago.

"It's not so bad," the boy insisted. "And besides, I've got to stay. For Geena and especially for Lincoln. They need me."

"_I _don't need you," Geena said.

"I don't need you, either," the boy shot back. "And we'll see who doesn't need me when Dad gets out of jail and gets drunk again."

Her blue eyes got huge, and welled up with tears as she thought about what could happen - what _would _happen - when that inevitable day came.

"Geena. Geena, don't…cry. I'm not going anywhere. I'm your big brother, see? I'll protect you. I'll always protect you. Whether you like it or not."

Kenny leaned across the kitchen table. "But CJ…who's protecting _you?"_

"What do you mean? I don't need protecting," the boy said, honestly puzzled.

Kenny slapped his hand against the tabletop and sat back in his chair. "There you go again with all that Spartan bullcrap they forced down your throat, right? 'Life is pain' and 'suck it up' and all that. CJ…You. Are. A. Kid. You're just a _kid_. Yeah, you're tough, and that's great, but good God, CJ…you're a _kid! _Your folks are _s'ppos'ta_ look after you, but it looks to me - and everybody _else_ in the neighborhood - that you pretty much just look after yourselves. That is to say, when your folks are not being downright _nasty_ to you."

The boy looked around nervously. "Kenny, shut it already. Mom's not that far away."

"And what will happen if she hears me? CJ, tell me…_how bad is it really?"_

"It's not…_that_…bad," the boy said. "Mom is just…loud."

"Mm hm. And your dad?"

"Dad's…loud…too."

"You sound a little hesitant there, CJ. A little unsure."

"He gets drunk, he gets mean. It's nothing I can't handle."

"CJ…I've known you a long time…and I've seen you step out of this house limping, or acting like everything hurts and you're just trying not to show it."

"It's nothing. I can handle it."

Kenny sighed and shook his head. "CJ, I'm…I'm…I'm _scared_ for you, man. The way they've taught you, your attitude, the way you look at life, the way they treat you…dude, I can see you…_dying real young. _I don't want that, man. You're my best buddy, and I want you to stick around."

The boy blinked. Then he laughed. "They're not going to _kill_ me, Kenny. And they'll never drive me to kill myself, if you're worried about that. I'm getting stronger all the time, man. One of these days, they're not gonna be _able _to hurt me anymore. Everything will be all right."

"It's just not right, CJ. It's not right at all," Kenny said, but quieted as the boy's mother entered the room behind him.

She slapped a small paperback book down on the table next to the boy's plate and he jumped.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Gramma dropped it off to me at lunch yesterday. She wants you to read it."

"For tomorrow?"

"No, for next week. I just gave it to you early."

"Oh. Thank God." He looked at the cover. _"The Metamorphosis, _by Franz Kafka. What's it about?"

"Hell if I know," his mother said.

"Gramma never made you read this?"

"Gramma never made me read anything. _Carolyn_ was the smart one."

The boy wondered if that was a fair assessment. Yes, Aunt Carolyn was smart, but his mother wasn't stupid, whatever else she was. Geena wasn't stupid, either, but Gramma treated her as if she were, and she seemed to think Lincoln wasn't any brighter despite the fact that he struck the boy as a _very_ intelligent five year old. Frankly it worried the boy. They weren't stupid children, but their grandmother's insistence that they were in some way less intelligent than he was might make them…_act_ stupid. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Damn it, one more thing to worry about. One more thing to try and counteract.

The boy picked up the book and opened it. He paged a few pages in, and then a few more, and then flipped a lot of pages until he finally found the actual start of the story. "Wow, that's a long introduction," he said. He paged towards the back of the book and discovered a series of essays on the text. He flipped through them until he finally found the end of the actual story. From beginning to end the tale encompassed only about fifty pages or just a little more. "…Seriously? That's it? Gramma wants me to read _this? _There's nothing to it."

"Good. Then you shouldn't have any trouble with it," mother said.

The boy dropped the book as though it had suddenly become something disgusting, like an insect. "This is…a _brainy_ story, isn't it? Where everything means something else. Can't take one word of it at face value."

"You'll be fine," his mother said.

"Yeah, CJ. Because after all, _Jaws_ is a metaphor," Kenny said, with a goony smile.

"Shut it," the boy muttered under his breath, but he couldn't keep a faint return smile from crossing his face.

"Hurry up and eat," mother said. "I want to be on the road."

The boy hurriedly scarfed down the last of his waffle. Then he jumped up, grabbed the book, and ran into his room to dump out his schoolbag and quickly pack it with a change of clothes, et cetera, and after a moment's hesitation stuffed the paperback in the bag, too. He doubted he'd get a chance to read any at Old Sonora, but he could ask Hank if he'd read it before. Probably not, but he might have heard of it.

Then again, Hank had read _Moby Dick, _so there was at least a possibility.

When he came out of his room, Mother was already loading up the others in the car. The boy locked the front door behind himself and trotted out to the T-Bird with his bag on his shoulder.

"You get in the front, Geena," he said to his sister, who had naturally gravitated to the back passenger door. "Just don't bug Mom." The boy himself climbed into the backseat next to Lincoln, and Kenny got in the other side. The change in seating arrangements left everyone, perhaps Mother especially, somewhat unsettled. The silence was tense, brittle, and no one dared break it on the long drive, not even Lincoln.

It was with relief that the boy and Kenny got out of the car at the front gate of Old Sonora. "I suppose I've got to pay for you, too?" Mother said to Kenny as she handed the boy the usual wad of cash out the open driver's side window.

"No, Ma'am. My folks gave me money for food and to split the cost of a room with CJ," Kenny said, and attempted a smile.

"Good." She threw the T-Bird into gear and roared off, leaving behind a cloud of dust.

Kenny coughed. "Geez Louise," he said as the dust cleared.

Hank was waiting just inside the gate. "Hey, Binky," he said, taking the chewed toothpick out of his mouth and tossing it into the dirt of the parking lot. "Who's yer friend?"

"Why does he call you 'Binky?'" Kenny asked, in a low voice.

"I have no idea," the boy said, equally low. Out loud he said, "Hi, Hank. This is my best friend, Kenny Marshall. I told you about him, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Hey, there, Kenny; nice to meet ya."

"Hello, Sir."

Hank smiled. "Name's Hank, not Sir."

Kenny wanted to ride horses, which ordinarily would have suited the boy just fine, but as they walked to the stables he felt lightheaded and…thrummy. It seemed so hot, for late December. He wanted to strip off his coat. Hank set Kenny up with the placid mare the boy had learned to ride on, and would have set the boy up with another animal that was more spirited - "You can handle him now, Bink" - but the boy demurred, and said he'd sit on the corral fence and watch. In truth, he wasn't sure he could keep his seat on the fence, let alone on a horse. The world swam around him as he fought to keep his grip on the top stile.

After Kenny was easy enough in the saddle to be left for a moment, Hank pulled his horse up alongside the fence.

"You okay, Binky? You look a tad flushed."

"I'm fine, Hank. I'm just a little - " A little what? Wobbly? "I'm fine, Hank."

"Mm hm," Hank said, but he left him be and went to make sure Kenny stayed on his horse.

Kenny was clearly _not_ a natural-born horseman, but a toddler could have ridden that particular mare in perfect safety - apart from that one unexpected instance where she shied out from under the boy - and he seemed to be having fun, which was good. The boy sat on the fence, clinging to the fencepost, and watched, and hoped for the day to pass quickly so he could go to bed - something he'd never hoped before at Old Sonora.

Part of him - rather a large part, in fact - wished Kenny weren't here. Whatever was wrong with him, there was certainly nothing ailing Kenny, so he wanted to be on the go. Which meant _Hank_ had to be on the go, if only to keep an eye on Kenny. Which meant that the boy was left sitting alone. He felt an unflattering wave of jealousy wash over him. He loved Kenny like a brother, but dammit, Old Sonora was _his_ thing, and Hank was _his_ friend. Kenny had never showed much interest in any of it previously. If he wasn't here, Hank would have had no problems whatsoever with just sitting and talking. They did that a lot, and it never grew tiresome. Sometimes they sat and _didn't_ talk, and that was nice, too. Kenny would never understand the appeal, because Kenny was…well, Kenny was a _kid_, and he had to be entertained.

The boy berated himself for these feelings. Kenny was, after all, his best friend, and if he felt better he would surely have loved to share this place with him. But the fact was, he felt lousy, and it was making him cranky. _Really_ cranky. _Industrial strength _cranky. Even just a little bit _I-don't-want-to-be-here _cranky. Which in turn made him feel guilty and ungrateful.

Finally he hopped off the fence, grabbed his bag and Kenny's, and took them over to the shade of the stables to sit on the ground leaning up against the wall. He reached into his schoolbag and pulled out the copy of _The Metamorphosis, _because while he felt too lousy to do much of anything else he might as well get started reading. He had all week to read the fifty-plus pages but if it was as brainy as he feared he might have to read it more than once to get an idea what was really going on. He opened the book to the first page of the story and the letters swam in his vision but this, at least, was typical. He puzzled out the first sentence.

_When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.*_

The boy looked up, puzzled. A vermin? Did that mean…a _bug?_ Maybe a mouse. He read on.

_He was lying on his back as hard as armor plate, and when he lifted his head a little, he saw his vaulted brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribs, to whose dome the cover, about to slide off completely, could barely cling. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, were waving helplessly before his eyes._

Okay, definitely a bug. This could be interesting after all, brainy or otherwise. Kind of sounded like something Poe or H.P. Lovecraft might write. Or maybe Stephen King, if you wanted to get modern.

As he read on, the boy found it all too easy to imagine the grotesquerie of a giant beetle attempting to roll itself out of a bed, of _being_ that beetle. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out _why_ the unfortunate Mr. Samsa had found himself in this predicament, but he trusted the clues were there. He just had to read on and think. He glanced up to check on Hank and Kenny, still riding around and around the inside of the big corral, then looked back to his book.

Then the boy began to read about Gregor's family, and felt a chill creeping over him that had nothing to do with the shade or the late December morning. How Gregor was locked into a job he didn't like by debts his father had accrued due to the failure of his business. How the whole family depended pretty much solely on Gregor to survive. The obligations and the sense of guilt that weighed him down. Somehow, the story of Gregor Samsa's life seemed…eerily familiar.

Unsettled, the boy closed the book and dropped it to his side. He didn't want to read this. But his gaze drifted back to the binding against his will. He was curious. He couldn't help that. He wanted to know how Gregor got out of this peculiar situation. He picked the book back up.

He read about Gregor's little sister, Grete, and how she tried to take care of him, even going so far as to clear his room of furniture (except for the couch under which he hid, out of her sight) so he could have the freedom to climb the walls and walk on the ceiling. To be free to be whatever it was he was going to be, no matter how repulsive she found him. The boy felt glad that Gregor had that much support, at least, in his time of trial.

But it didn't last. Mostly, it seemed, because Gregor's _parents_ couldn't tolerate what he had become. And they made the boy angry, because they were clearly capable of looking after themselves, and could have done for years, at least to take _some_ of the onus off of Gregor's shoulders. He didn't blame Grete, because she was just a girl, though old enough clearly to start looking after herself somewhat, but Father, who sat around in his chair for five years growing fat and lazy, and Mother, who laid claim to ill health but was still capable of light work like the sewing job she eventually took, had no excuse for growing so thoroughly dependent on their grown son. They'd even set aside a portion of the money _he_ had earned for their own use, handy now, but it could have helped Gregor get out from under his bad job so much quicker. They had let him take care of them, with no thought whatsoever about _his_ life, or _his_ future. And Gregor had no one; no friends, no lovers. Always too busy, taking care of the family. The family that should have taken care of him, at least a bit.

Unsettled again, the boy dropped the book into his lap. Hank rode up and dismounted.

"What'cha readin', Bink?" he asked.

The boy held the book up. _"The Metamorphosis, _by Franz Kafka," he said.

"I think I've heard of that. What's it about?"

"This young man turns into a bug," the boy said.

"I see. Is it good?"

"Yeah. _Really_ good. But I don't want to do a book report about it."

"Why not?"

"'Cause I think it will be too much like writing a diary," the boy said.

Hank looked at him for a long moment, and then said, "Feeling a little buggy, Bink?"

The boy laughed, slightly. "Kinda. I mean, I know I'm not going to turn into a bug, that's ridiculous. But I think I understand why this guy did. He was nothing, no one. Trapped in a web of expectations and obligations with no room to be his own man. And I can see my life becoming pretty much the same as his life. It's already halfway there."

"If you see that as your future, Binky, then you can work to keep it from happening," Hank said.

"But how? How do you get out from under obligations and expectations? I can't just abandon my family."

"Maybe not, but you can make your life about more than just your family," Hank said. "You said you want to be a cop, right? That everybody who _expects _you can't do it, family included, can go spit."

"But if it weren't for my family, for the way it is, would I want to be a cop? Maybe all I really want is to bring my family name a little respect."

"That ain't such a bad thing to want, Binky."

"But is it enough to build a life on?"

"You're gonna have to figure that one out for yourself, Bink. But for what it's worth, I don't think that's all you want, or all you'll have to build your life on. And I don't think you'll ever be anything but your own man, Binky. You're too damn _you_ not to be. You're not like anybody else I've ever known."

"Hank?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think maybe we could go play some poker now? I taught Kenny a little bit about it but we've never been able to play an actual game together."

"Sounds good to me, Bink."

Kenny was amenable, so Hank pulled him down off his horse, got someone to take care of the animals, and they all headed off to the Sheriff's Office for a game.

* * *

* _Die Verwandlung/The Metamorphosis, _by Franz Kafka, c. 1915 translation c. 1972 by Stanley Corngold


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." Also contains heavy spoilers for _The Metamorphosis_ by Franz Kafka.

**A/N: **I am so glad to get this chapter behind me. I can finally stop singing this stupid song!

* * *

**The Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu**

The boy sat straight up in bed, shivering from a cold sweat. Next to him, Kenny stirred and turned over, but remained asleep. The boy was glad of that. The last thing he wanted was questions about what had startled him awake.

It was a dream, of course. Quite a vivid dream, wherein he found himself transformed in his bed to a giant insect. He'd finished _The Metamorphosis _before turning off the light to sleep, and it had clearly followed him into his dreams. That was strange, because he _never_ dreamed. He didn't get nightmares from _Salem's Lot _or _The Shining_, which were intentionally far scarier than what Kafka had written, but apparently the little novella resonated just a little too personally.

And there was no happy ending for Gregor Samsa. Killed by either starvation or the festering wound on his back inflicted by his own father with, of all things, an _apple_, left there to rot. He died in his filthy room, alone and unloved, knowing that his family considered themselves trapped by him when the truth of the matter was _he_ had always been trapped by _them_. He just shriveled up and died. One more meaningless dead bug.

And then, when things might have looked somewhat hopeful, for Grete at the least - out in the sunshine, free and happy - that brief little aside, that her parents now thought it would be a good time to look for a husband for her. Their "new dreams and good intentions." And Grete "stretched her young body." The boy was certain, Grete was the next to wake up one day unpleasantly transformed. Mother and Father had transferred their hopes and dreams from Gregor onto her, and they would trap her in a life she would never be allowed to make for herself. There would be no conservatory, no music, no hope.

Maybe it wasn't what Mr. Kafka had really intended to say, but to the boy, the whole story seemed to shout that family was a trap.

Geez, and somehow he had to write a report on this. For preference, one that didn't show just how closely he identified with the unfortunate protagonist.

He lay back and turned over onto his side, away from Kenny. He didn't know what time it was, but judging from the darkness of the hotel room it was pretty doggone early. He wasn't sure he could get back to sleep, but he was so weary. His chest hurt and it was kind of hard to breathe.

The sun slowly rose, lightening the dark room, and the boy got up, careful not to wake Kenny, and washed up as best he could from the washbowl near the door and dressed for the day. He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and scribbled out a quick note for Kenny and went downstairs. It was even just a little bit too early for Hank, but there was no sense lying around wheezing.

He didn't go far. He sat in the hotel lobby bundled up in his coat, miserable and undoubtedly sick. Damn it. He'd managed to catch cold, or the flu, or something.

The boy did not realize that he had fallen asleep in the chair until he woke up, with Hank's hand pressed against his forehead.

"Binky, you're burnin' up. I think I should call your Mama," Hank said.

Instantly alarmed, the boy sat forward. "That's…really not necessary, Hank," he said. "In fact, it's downright ill-advised."

"Binky, you're sick. You should be home in bed."

"I'll be all right, Hank. It's just a few more hours 'til she comes for me, anyway."

Hank sighed and shook his head. "Okay, Binky, I suppose you're right. But you take it easy today."

"I will, Hank."

"Where's your buddy?"

"Probably still asleep. I don't think Kenny's an early riser by choice, and he had to get up early yesterday."

"You wanna wait for him, wake 'im up, or what?" Hank asked.

"I left him a note. Let him sleep."

There were rocking chairs set out in front of the Sheriff's Office; the boy and Hank often sat there to talk. Or not talk, as the case may be. The latter proved to be the case as they sat waiting for Kenny. They had to wait several hours, until the sun had risen nearly to the noon position, but that was no problem. It was nice, in fact.

Once Kenny was up, he seemed content to run around exploring Old Sonora on his own, for which the boy was grateful. He confessed to him that he was sick, and Kenny was appropriately sympathetic. The boy didn't particularly welcome sympathy, but from Kenny it was okay. He sat in his rocking chair, bundled up to the eyes almost in his coat despite the fact that the day was fairly warm, and watched as Kenny ran from the blacksmith's shop to the apothecary, and then into the general store from which he emerged carrying a stick of rock candy, a bag of root beer barrels, and a jaw harp. Kenny sat on the steps of the Sheriff's Office and ate the rock candy, then started teaching himself to play the jaw harp. He wasn't particularly musical with it but he did learn how to speak the alphabet through it fairly quickly, a weird sound.

The boy didn't feel much like eating, but Hank talked him into getting a buffalo burger at the saloon when Kenny did. The saloon girls clustered around them, cooing over Kenny's cornsilk blond hair, and the general consensus was that they were a couple of future heartbreakers. Kenny seemed to enjoy the attention.

Finally it was time to go home, and the boy couldn't help but feel grateful for it. Hank ruffled his hair and told him to get well soon, and he climbed in the back of the T-Bird with a weary sigh.

"What's wrong with you, Booker?" mother asked from the driver's seat.

"Just a little tired, is all," he said. Kenny reached past Lincoln's head and shoved at his shoulder.

"Tell her you're sick," he said.

"_What's that?" _she said.

"It's no big deal, Ma."

"You're sick?" she said.

"Just a little. I'll be fine."

She adjusted the rear view mirror to look at him in the backseat, saw that he was clearly more than a little bit sick, and muttered something under her breath that sounded like "Spartan." Coming from her, it could have been either admonition or admiration.

Kenny apparently heard it, because he groaned and shook his head vigorously.

She drove them home, and Kenny went back to his house. The boy watched his siblings as they played in the yard, but didn't join in with their games, even when Lincoln begged him to.

"Sorry, Link. Just not up to it today."

Grandma showed up, in her Beetle, and went inside the house to start cooking. Another hour passed, and just as Aunt Carolyn was pulling up in her El Camino, Lincoln made a break for the road. The boy shot off the front steps in high gear, and caught the little boy and pulled him back just as Aunt Carolyn opened the door of her car and climbed out.

"Land sakes, boy, what are you wheezing about?" she said, catching the rough note in his breath.

"Just feeling a little under the weather," he gasped out.

"Only a little? Because I've gotta say, you look like death."

He smiled weakly. "I'm okay, Aunt Carolyn."

"Uh huh," she said, clearly unconvinced, but she let it go for the moment.

The boy didn't particularly want his supper, but he ate, because to do otherwise would be to admit to just how sick he felt. Still, he couldn't eat with quite the same appetite as usual, and Aunt Carolyn clearly noticed. Finally, she broke her silence.

"Myrna, you need to take that boy to see a doctor," she said. "Tonight."

"It's Sunday. Doctors don't see patients on Sunday."

"The Emergency Room is always open."

"Emergency Room," mother scoffed. "Booker's not _that_ sick."

"Yes he is. Myrna, he was wheezing like an old pipe organ outside, running after Lincoln. He might have pneumonia."

"Booker wouldn't get pneumonia."

"_Anyone _can get pneumonia," Carolyn insisted. "And anyone can _die_ from it. Even if he didn't, it could ruin his health forever. Take him to the Emergency Room, Myrna."

"He _does_ look like warmed-over shit," Gramma said, surprising everyone.

"All right, all right, we'll go after supper. I suppose I can count on _you_, Carolyn, to watch the other two while I do that? Because they'll never sit still in an ER waiting room."

"I'll watch 'em. Just get CJ to a doctor."

`Aunt Carolyn volunteered to do the dishes while mother took the boy to the hospital. An hour, a chest x-ray, and an inhaled steroid treatment later, the doctor pushed through the curtains separating the boy's bed from the other beds in the emergency ward.

"Well, I've got bad news. It's definitely the walking pneumonia," he said, putting a hand on the boy's head.

"And the boogie woogie flu?" the boy said, quietly, and the doctor laughed and ruffled his hair.

"The good news is, I don't think he needs to be admitted. I'm gonna give you a scrip for some antibiotics that he needs to get started on right away, and a note for his school - he needs to take the next week off. That'll take him into the winter holiday, so he'll have more time to rest and recuperate. Lots of bed rest, lots of fluids, not too much excitement. He should be fine by Christmas, or at least well enough to be up and about a little on that day. Don't push it, of course. And if his breathing starts giving him too much trouble at any point, bring him back in for another inhaler treatment."

They were discharged, after a bit more paperwork, and by the time they made it to the pharmacy it was late and they were closed.

"Damn. Well, we'll have to get your medicine tomorrow," mother said.

"But you have to work," the boy pointed out.

"No problem. I'll leave the scrip and some money in the kitchen and have your Gramma come over after work and get it filled for you."

"Gramma doesn't get off 'til _five."_

"Yeah, well, I go to work before the pharmacy opens, so it's the best we can do."

"If I'm going to be home all day, I can run the prescription in," the boy said.

Mother scoffed. "You're sick, you're going to be in bed. The pharmacy is six blocks away. You can't 'run it in.'"

"Six blocks isn't that far."

"It is when you've got pneumonia."

They went home and the boy went to bed. He had the bed to himself, because mother took Lincoln into her room so he wouldn't get sick and cost her another trip to Emergency. In the morning the boy got up long enough to fix Geena and Lincoln some Eggos and went back to bed, worrying incessantly about Geena's ability to safely walk Lincoln the four blocks to school on her own. Of course, Kenny would walk with them. That made him feel a bit better.

He lay there, feeling useless. He could get started on his book report, surely he could do _that_ much, sick or not, but he was still reluctant to risk the baring of his soul. He tossed and turned for an hour or so after they left until, thoroughly disgusted with himself, he got up and dressed.

He was supposed to get started on the medicine right away. Waiting 'til five o'clock for Gramma to swing by didn't quite meet the doctor's orders. He'd walked to the pharmacy hundreds of times - it was the closest place to get an ice-cold Coke or a candy bar, the same distance, actually, as the nearest convenience store, but the cross-streets were quieter. What was there to think about?

The scrip was on the kitchen table, along with a twenty dollar bill. He grabbed both and stuffed the money in his pocket. He had his house key; he locked the door behind him when he left.

He was about four blocks down the street before he knew this was a bad idea. He could hardly breathe. It was easier to keep going than to go back: there were chairs at the pharmacy for people to sit while waiting for prescriptions and there'd be a bit of a wait anyway. He could rest there until he was ready for the walk back.

He felt somewhat ashamed of himself. He couldn't help it. But clearly, pneumonia was not like ordinary illness. A healthy boy like him could fight off a cold or the flu without much difficulty, but when pneumonia grabbed hold of you, it knocked you on your butt no matter how healthy you were otherwise. It was just…bad luck, essentially.

He made it to the pharmacy with a breath or two to spare, and handed in his prescription at the counter. The pharmacist gave him a curious look but said nothing more than, "It'll be about twenty minutes, son."

"That's fine," the boy said, and plopped down into one of the waiting chairs with relief. He had time to catch his breath before the pharmacist returned to the counter and gestured for him to come over.

He put the bottle of medicine into a small white paper bag and stapled it shut along with a page of warnings, notifications, instructions, and side effects. He told the boy how often to take the antibiotic and rattled off the price. The boy pulled the twenty from his pocket and laid it on the counter. The pharmacist made his change and handed it over.

"Thanks," the boy said, and stuffed it in his pocket. He left the pharmacy for the long walk home, hoping it would be a little easier going back than it was coming out. The sidewalks were in better repair on the homeward side of the street, one block east from the street he lived on, so maybe it would be. In places, the sidewalk on the other side of the street was just loose chunks of concrete, easy to stumble over. It was a wonder nobody had sued the city over it. The boy wondered how it had gotten so messed up. Looked like people had been taking jackhammers to it. That kind of destruction didn't make sense as naturally-occurring in the mild climate of Santa Barbara.

A mystery for the ages, evidently.

The boy pushed thoughts of sidewalks out of his head as he labored on his way home. He didn't get very far. A black and white police cruiser pulled up alongside him, and the officer rolled down his window.

"You mind telling me why you're not in school, there, young fella?" the officer said.

"I'm off for the week, Sir," the boy said. "I have pneumonia."

"Then what are you doing out walking around?"

The boy raised the little white bag he held. "I had to pick up my medicine, Sir."

The officer, a young man, and quite tall by the way his head brushed the cruiser's roof, turned more fully in his seat to face him, revealing the shiny brass nametag over his shirt pocket. "McNab," his tag read.

"You _still_ shouldn't be out walking around. How far are you from home? Do you need a ride?"

Home was still the better part of five blocks away. Getting a lift in a police cruiser would be cool, but the boy was struck with an intense and doubtless perverse desire to finish what he'd started. He gestured vaguely in the direction of his house and said, "I just live over there, Sir. It's not much further."

True on a normal day. Today, with breath coming short? Definitely a lie. He was lying to a cop. He'd feel rotten about it later.

"Okay. Just…get on home and get to bed, okay kid? You look terrible."

"I will, Sir. Thank you."

The officer waved, rolled up his window, and drove away. The boy made sure he was out of sight before continuing on his way.

Despite the fact that he couldn't draw a deep breath, the boy made it home before he was very near collapse. He went to the kitchen, where he took the change out of his pocket and left it on the table, then got a glass of water from the sink and took it into the living room. He flipped on the TV, not caring, for the moment, what was on it, and opened the little white paper bag and pulled out the bottle of medicine. Printed on the white label of the orange bottle was his name, "Carlton Lassiter." It looked funny, printed out that way. Hank had said he'd grow into it, but he couldn't imagine ever going by it. He was CJ. That's what everybody called him. They probably always would.

He twisted the cap off and took his first pill, swallowing it down with a healthy gulp of tap water. He put the bottle and the glass on the table by the couch and threw the bag away in the kitchen garbage. Then he came back into the living room and flipped through the dial on the TV until he found something interesting.

What he found was a cooking show. A very tall, somewhat elderly lady with an…_interesting _voice, stirring something in a sauce pan. Learning how to cook seemed like a good idea, now that he was braving the stove on his own. He relocated to the couch and sat down to watch.

He wasn't likely to be making what _she_ was making any time soon. He didn't know quite what it was - it had some Frenchy-sounding name - but it looked basically like pork chops. He'd have to wait until he could confidently cook a hamburger through before tackling meats that were more "touchy" like pork and chicken. Pink chicken was bad for you on general principles, and undercooked pork could give you trichinosis. He'd learned that much in school health classes.

The show was entertaining. The lady was funny - he couldn't quite determine whether or not she meant to be - and finished off the delicious-looking meal she'd created with a tall glass of beer, which didn't seem entirely ladylike but was kind of endearing nevertheless. The show ended and segued into another cooking show. This one featured a man as the chef, portly and somewhat elderly, dressed in a white and blue striped shirt with red suspenders on his pants and a black string tie at his neck. The title credited his name as "Justin Wilson," but when the man introduced himself, he pronounced it "Justeen Weelsohn." He had quite an accent.

This man clearly intended to be funny. Granted, it took a bit of listening for the boy to understand what he was saying, but as Mr. Wilson cooked he spun hilarious yarns of people and places that sounded incredibly exotic to the boy's ears. He wouldn't be making _this _meal any time soon, either - alligator tail and something called a "roux" - but it was certainly interesting. He watched cooking shows all the rest of the afternoon until he heard a knock on the front door. Glancing at the clock, he knew it had to be Geena, who didn't have a key.

"Coming," he called, and went to let them in. Kenny came inside with his siblings and dropped a note into the boy's hands.

"Homework assignments for the week. Mrs. Inman wants you to catch up over the holiday and have 'em ready to hand in when you come back at the end of the break."

"Thanks, Kenny."

"_Lincoln's _got a note, too," Geena said, in a sing-song voice that implied the little boy was in trouble.

Judging from the fact that the note was pinned to his shirt, he probably was. The boy sighed and unpinned the piece of paper. He read the brief epistle. Lincoln's teacher wanted to speak to a parent.

Uh oh.

The boy knelt down in front of his brother and looked him in the eye.

"Let me guess: you turned in your drawing today?" he said. Lincoln nodded solemnly. The boy sighed. "I should've guessed this would happen. Well, I'll just have to tell Mom when she gets home. She'll have to take time off work for this. She'll be pissed - er, she'll be mad."

"So what did you do all day?" Kenny asked him, as he stood up again.

"Watched some TV."

"Anything good?"

"Just some cooking shows."

"Dude, you couldn't find anything better than that? No cartoons?"

"Hey, it was interesting. I saw this old Cajun guy stew up a real alligator tail."

"Yuck," Geena said.

The boy grinned. "And then he told us how to cook a plank possum. He said you take a possum, put it on a plank, pop it into the oven for nine or ten hours, take the plank out of the oven, throw the possum away, and eat the plank. That's a _good_ plank."

"What's a possum?" Lincoln asked.

"An ugly little critter that kind of looks like a big rat," the boy said. "Backwoods hill people eat 'em."

"Are _we_ backwoods hill people?"

"No, Lincoln. Although I think we're closer than we should be."

"So we don't have to eat possum, do we?"

"No, Lincoln."

"Good. 'Cause I think I'd much rather have burgers."

"Well, I'd better get going," Kenny said. "I just wanted to drop off your homework…and ask you how you feel about missing the pageant?"

The boy groaned. "Oh, crap on a cracker!"

Kenny giggled. "They haven't decided who to replace you with, yet. Just think: it'll be someone else with their arm around Julie McCartney's shoulders."

The boy blushed. "It's no…big deal. I didn't want to be in the stupid pageant, anyway." A true statement, but the thought of someone else standing next to Julie…and her maybe complimenting his eyes or _something_ about him…set his teeth on edge. He was too young to be this bothered, wasn't he? Girls were still supposed to be a hostile alien species, at least for a _couple_ more years, right?

Right?

* * *

**A/N:** In my head cannon, McNab comes from a long line of men in blue. The "Officer McNab" CJ encounters here is his father.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

* * *

**Why Do Fools Fall In Love?**

Gramma came over at about five-thirty, fussed a bit about the fact that she'd come for no good reason, and left shortly after she finished yelling. The boy made supper for himself and his siblings - hot dogs, because he didn't feel up to attempting anything more complicated than microwavable. Heinz ketchup on his and Lincoln's, French's yellow mustard on Geena's. He made Geena do her homework, got started on his own, and put both children to bed at the usual time. He himself, however, stayed up to wait for mother to come home.

She came through the door at about ten o'clock, carrying a wadded up takeout bag she threw into the trash when she came in. "What are you doing up?" she asked.

"Lincoln got a note from his teacher," he said. He handed it over. "She wants to talk to you."

She looked at it, then wadded it up and threw it away. "I don't have time for this bullshit."

"You're not going?" he asked.

"Like I'm going to take off work to talk to some idiot _kindergarten_ teacher," she said.

"Okay," the boy said. It's not like he hadn't expected this. Tomorrow afternoon he'd walk to school and talk to Lincoln's teacher himself. And doubtless she'd understand the minute he walked through the door why Lincoln had left his parents out of his picture.

If he was lucky, she wouldn't immediately call Child Protective Services.

He changed into his pajamas and went to bed. He was nervous about meeting Lincoln's teacher, who could very well decide to split his family apart with a single phone call, and as he lay there alone in the darkness he noticed he was clicking his teeth together to the rhythm of "Little Willy." This was what Hank called his "tell," and what the fancy-pants child psychologist the school had made him talk to last year called a "pathology." The boy preferred the poker term. He used to click his teeth together all the time, to the tune of one song or another. The psychologist had tried to refer him to a psychiatrist, who could prescribe him a medication for "chronic anxiety." He had said this was imperative for the sake of his health as well as his teeth, which could eventually be damaged by the constant compression. Mother had put the kibosh on the idea: they could barely afford her _own _psychiatrist, a far more necessary expenditure given what happened whenever she went off her meds, and as she said, no Spartan would ever take medicine for anything as pansy-assed as "chronic anxiety." So the boy sucked it up.

He wasn't sorry. Since learning how to play poker he'd been learning to school himself better, and he was now able to stop himself whenever he started in with the annoying clicking. It didn't make him any less anxious, of course, but at least no one could tell by the movement of his jaw. He forced himself to still, telling himself that he was stronger than the fidgets.

He fell asleep, and woke in the morning before the alarm clock went off. He got Geena and Lincoln out of bed and dressed and fixed them their usual breakfast. After they left he installed himself on the couch and watched cooking shows until it was time to go to school to talk to Lincoln's teacher.

School was just letting out for the day when he arrived. He pushed through the crowd of students of all ages spilling out of classrooms to their lockers in the hallways and made his way to Ms. Pingle's kindergarten class. She was busy wiping down the chalkboard when he entered.

"Oh, can I help you, young man?" she asked.

"Hi. I'm…CJ Lassiter. I'm Lincoln's brother. You…sent a note home with him yesterday, wanting to talk to someone."

She put down the eraser, smiling strangely. "I…wanted to talk to…a _parent," _she said. "I was very clear about that in my note, or at least I thought I was."

"You were, Ma'am, but mom works a double shift and can't get time off," the boy said.

"Well, what about your father?" she asked.

The boy sighed. "Ma'am, I'm sure you know full well where my father is. He won't be out for the next two months, minimum."

She laughed, not with any humor. "I can't discuss this with a ten year old," she said.

"I'm _eleven. _I'll be twelve in two months."

"Even so."

"Look, Ma'am, I'm off school all week long because I've got walking pneumonia. I walked down here today anyway because I knew you were worried about my little brother. Because of the picture he drew, right? You want to know why he left out our parents."

"Well…yes, actually."

"What did _he_ tell you?"

"He told me that your mother isn't around much."

"She goes to work at four o'clock in the morning and comes home at around ten o'clock at night. We only see her on weekends."

"That doesn't _quite_ tell me why he would leave her out of a family portrait."

"He's five. All week long, when he thinks of family, he stops at me and Geena."

"So…all week long…who takes care of you?" Ms. Pingle asked.

"_I _do."

"You're…awfully young to be in charge of taking care of your brother and sister."

"Gramma comes over sometimes, but she works, too."

"CJ…has anybody…_talked_ with you…about your family situation?"

He sighed again. "You mean somebody from CPS, right? Look, we get along just fine. We don't need anybody checking up on us, scoping us out, and we definitely don't need to be split up and sent to different houses. Okay? It's happened to us before. It was _not_ good."

"You've been in foster care?" Ms. Pingle asked.

"A couple of years ago, after the police got my dad for domestic assault. The people from CPS said they were afraid our home was a 'hostile environment.' They sent Lincoln to some big house across town and Geena and me ended up with people who only took kids in for the monthly paycheck."

"How did you…end up back in your own home?"

"Dad got sent to jail. They decided we could go back to mom…after a few months. We had to fight to get Lincoln back. The rich people he got put with wanted to keep him." And mom had been willing to let them. When the boy said _"we _had to fight" he really meant _"I _had to fight." He'd had to fight mother, tooth and nail, to get her to take Lincoln back.

He still wondered if he'd done the right thing for Lincoln or whether his motivations were purely selfish. How was he supposed to know one way or another? He was just a kid.

Maybe that was his answer right there. But he couldn't stand the thought of his family split up.

"Look, I know I'm just a kid. But I look after my family. I take good care of Lincoln and I don't let bad things happen to him. We don't need to be split up."

She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Okay. All right. I won't call anybody. As long as I don't see anything worse than a picture without parents in it."

"Thank you, Ma'am," the boy said, relieved.

"Tell me something. Do you really have walking pneumonia?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to be home in bed, but I figure there's gotta be a reason they call it 'walking' pneumonia. I'm as sick as I've ever been, but I'm functional."

"Well, you get along home now and go back to bed. Functional or not, pneumonia is serious business. You've got to take care of yourself, all right? Just as much as you've got to take care of your little brother."

"All right, Ma'am. Thank you."

He ducked out of the classroom and turned only to find himself face to face with Julie McCartney.

"Hi," she said.

"Er…hi," he said.

"I thought you were sick," she said.

"I am. I just…I had to come in and talk to my little brother's kindergarten teacher. Why are you still here?"

"My house is only a couple blocks from here, so I walk home," she said. "I saw you go in so I decided to wait. I wanted to talk to you."

Panic set in abruptly. "About what?"

"Walk me home?"

"I…sure."

She slipped her arm through his elbow, startling him. She led him to the front doors and turned down the street. When they reached the sidewalk, she spoke.

"They replaced you with Paul Gershon, in the pageant."

"Oh yeah?"

"I don't like it. He belched his line today in rehearsal and he smells bad."

"Sorry."

She laughed, and for some reason he felt a shiver run up and down his spine. "You _should_ be. It should be _you_ up there next to me, not Paul. You make a much better Joseph. And even though you don't want to do it, you take it seriously instead of acting like a childish clown."

"You knew I didn't want to do it?"

She laughed again. "It was pretty obvious."

He scratched at the back of his neck. "I…don't like going up on stage and I hate being forced to remember lines and stuff. It's not like I minded doing it with _you. _I mean…_acting_ with you."

"Is that why you wouldn't put your arm down around my shoulders but just kind of hovered there?"

"I…er…I…"

"You're kind of shy. I like it," she said.

The boy blushed and said nothing. Julie laughed.

"I've heard you beat up bullies," she said.

"Oh, not anymore," he said, quickly. "At least…I won't throw the first punch."

"But you still stick up for people when they're getting bullied."

"Well…yeah. I guess."

She squeezed his arm. "I think that is _such _a good thing. And I also heard you take care of your brother and sister."

"Yeah. Well, someone has to."

"It's sweet."

"I don't think my brother and sister would tell you I'm sweet. …Especially my sister."

She turned them in at the walkway of a largish two-story house and came to a stop before the steps. "Well, _I_ think you're sweet," she said, and leaned in to plant a quick kiss on his cheek.

Already short of breath because of his illness, the boy did just exactly what he thought he might do under these circumstances.

He passed out.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

* * *

**Blue Christmas**

The boy walked the rest of the way home in a daze that he thought had nothing to do with pneumonia and only a little to do with hitting his head. Fortunately he'd landed in grass, and didn't brain himself on the concrete steps or sidewalk, and when he came to Julie McCartney was squatting beside him, giggling and smiling. She'd helped him to his feet and then kissed him on the cheek _again_ before slipping into the house, and that more than anything caused the daze.

He found Geena and Lincoln waiting on the front steps when he got home, Kenny standing sentinel nearby, and he unlocked the door for them without saying a word.

"What's wrong with you?" Geena asked. "You're acting like the living dead."

He muttered something vague about nothing being wrong and shooed his siblings inside. Kenny tugged at his sleeve before he managed to follow them in the house.

"Dude, what _is_ wrong with you? You look all…glazed over." Kenny snickered. "You been eatin' donuts?"

The boy looked at his friend for a long, silent moment, and his mouth opened and closed a few times. Finally he managed to say it: "Julie McCartney kissed me. Twice."

"Get outta here!" Kenny said, and hit him in the shoulder. "Really? On the lips?"

"On the cheek."

"Well, still. What was it like?"

"I blacked out after the first time."

Kenny laughed. "That good, huh? So, what gives? Are you, like, _dating_ now?"

"I have no idea. We didn't talk about it. She just kissed me and went in the house."

"Dude, you should have asked her out."

"Out where? I'm eleven years old, I have no money, and I have pneumonia. She _kissed_ me. She's probably gonna catch it now, too."

"Hope it doesn't make her think you have _cooties."_

"I don't understand why she _doesn't_ seem to think I have cooties. All the other girls in our class do."

"Not all of 'em, man. I've heard plenty of 'em talkin' about those big blue eyes of yours."

The boy blushed. "You liar."

"Am not. Henrietta Colgate told Mary Murdock that she thought you were the cutest boy in our grade."

"Henrietta Colgate is just about blind."

"She has 20/20 vision through those Coke-bottle glasses she wears. Face it, you're not the dog you think you are. Except where _Julie McCartney _is concerned, you dog."

"You're going to tease me about this from now until Judgment Day, aren't you?" the boy said.

"No, only until the Rapture. _You're_ the one who hasn't been to church in months, you heathen."

"I don't particularly miss it, either. I suppose I'll go to Midnight Mass if I'm well enough on Christmas."

"Father Murphy's been asking about you. Bet he'll shanghai you and talk to you about the state of your eternal soul."

"Well, he's a priest. That's kind of his job."

"But what are you gonna tell him? What is the state of your eternal soul, especially now that you can't stop thinking about the possibility of locking lips with Julie McCartney?" Kenny's grin was almost a leer.

The boy pushed him backwards off the bottom step. "Give it up, man. Nothing like that happened, and nothing like that is likely to happen. I walked her home, she kissed me on the cheek. Period."

"Twice. She kissed you on the cheek _twice."_

The boy couldn't help it. He grinned. "Yeah."

Kenny pushed him. "You dog," he said, laughing. "Any chance she's got a sister?"

"I think she's, like, three. Is that a problem?"

The boys laughed at each other, and then Kenny crossed the street to his own house with a wave over his shoulder. The boy went inside and collapsed on the couch, feeling embarrassingly loose-limbed and a bit shaky. But he didn't think there was any reason to walk anywhere for the remainder of the week, so he should be fine. He would keep taking his medicine and get a bit more bed rest, like the doctor had told him to do.

The next three days passed in a blur of sameness. He got up, he dressed Lincoln, he fixed breakfast for his siblings, and then he spent the day on the couch watching cooking shows and doing his homework. He cooked supper at night and went to bed early. By Friday he felt well enough to attempt some actual cooking beyond the usual microwave effort. He made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. He took for himself the one that got a bit too dark while he stirred the soup.

He stayed home over the weekend with little to do except sleep - it _did_ give him a chance to figure out how his brother and sister managed over his weekends away. Not well, as it turned out. There was a _lot_ of yelling. A lot of swearing. A lot of ugly. Every time he got out of bed to attempt to quell the chaos his mother shouted at him to get back under the covers.

It was frustrating, because he felt much better. He was at least able to talk her into letting him join the family for church on Sunday morning, though he didn't particularly want to go. He thought that if Father Murphy, the senior priest of the parish, really wanted to waylay him after a service, it was better he do it in the morning when he was fresh than after Midnight Mass when he would likely be dead tired. Saint Joseph's Parochial took its students to church every Wednesday morning, which Mass was generally officiated by Father Luccio Vannoni, the younger of the two foremost priests of the parish (a sop to the neighborhood's strong Italian presence, some said, always somewhat divisive with the neighborhood's somewhat stronger Irish makeup, and for all the Italian kids that wanted to beat the boy up for being Irish there were at least an equal number of Irish kids who would have wanted to beat him up if they'd known he had a thin little sliver of Italian blood stemming a couple of generations back when a McKiernan married a Semprini). In any event, it meant the boy went to church every week, at least while school was in session, so he wasn't a _total_ heathen, but if Father Murphy had something to say he'd best listen. The whole neighborhood was pretty strongly Catholic, the few Protestants and even fewer Jewish families strongly outnumbered, which made Father Murphy an influential local figure to say the least.

For the first time in months the boy sat through a Sunday Mass, Lincoln on his lap and his hand firmly at the back of Geena's neck, and it seemed to him that there were signs of…relief? From parishioners seated nearby. Certainly he seemed to be getting an odd number of smiles and nods.

Not comfortable with the attention, the boy kept his eyes fixed on the big crucifix above the altar at the front of the church.

He didn't actually pay much attention to the service, not feeling that the state of his eternal soul was truly tied to words spoken by a priest from the Bible. Not that he thought it _hurt_ anything, but he only understood so well - like so much else, he thought it likely that he would understand better when he was older. When Mass was over they all got up and filed out. Father Murphy shook hands and said a few words to everyone at the door.

"Oh, CJ, I've been wanting a chance to talk to you," he said, when they got to the door. "I wonder if I might borrow you for a moment?"

"Of course, Father."

Father Luccio took over at the door, and Father Murphy drew the boy aside. "I understand you've been sick, lad," he said. He didn't have an Irish accent - he was born and raised in Santa Barbara - but he spoke in an Irish syntax.

"Yeah, Father. I'm…getting over pneumonia."

"But that's not why I haven't seen you Sundays, for the last few months."

"Ah. No. I've been…spending my weekends…out of town."

"So I've heard. Old Sonora?"

"Yes, Father."

"Doesn't it get a bit old, week after week?"

"Oh no, Father. I…I'm friends with the man who owns the place, so I get to do things most tourists don't."

"Like what, lad?"

"Um…riding horses and…things." Somehow he didn't think Father Murphy would like the idea of him learning to shoot guns.

"That's good. It sounds like this is a good thing for you."

"Er…yeah, I think so."

"I have to say, though, me boyo, your family certainly misses you when you're not here."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'd have to say they lack a certain…_cohesion_ when you're not around."

"I…see."

"Understand me, I don't begrudge you the time away, it's just…honestly, lad…I've never seen a 'big brother' with so much impact on the day to day functioning of his family. Your name was well-chosen."

The boy cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "I was under the impression that 'Carlton' meant 'peasant town.'"

"Peasant in the sense of a free man, me boyo, so it's not as bad as you think. But I didn't mean your given name, lad - I meant your Confirmation name."

"Michael? Er...isn't he the angel of War?"

"He's a warrior, me boyo, but above all else, a bringer of _order_. Much like you yourself are for your family. I wonder...have you given any thought to what you'll be when you grow up, lad? I know your teachers have spoken of this to you."

"I'm going to be a policeman, Father Murphy."

Father Murphy clapped him on the shoulder. "I hoped you'd say that. I truly did. I honestly think you were born for it. If ever any child had a calling. And I've heard tell that in recent days, you've curbed the impulse to tear into all and sundry who look at you wrong."

"Er...yes, Father. I'm trying to be...better."

"Picking your battles."

"Yes, Father."

"Good, good. Understand, I've always been glad to hear that you stand up for your classmates, but I'm just as happy you're learning a bit of restraint. That streak of violence in you could lead you to a bad end if you're not careful. You're a good boy, and I want good things for your future, lad."

"Thank you, Father."

"Well, I see your mother tapping her foot and checking her watch, so I'll let you go, lad. Really just wanted to touch base with you, see where you thought you might be headed. Go with God, young man."

"Thank you, Father. Er…you, too."

The boy rejoined his family and they all went home. There was little to look forward to except dinner, and likewise on Christmas Day the same thing again. The boy and his siblings received the usual present: ten dollars cash for the elders, and five dollars for Lincoln. Knowing exactly what you were going to get year after year took all the anticipation out of it, though having a little bit of cash in hand was nice.

Geena already had plans to spend hers, and Lincoln would probably buy five dollars worth of candy. The boy intended to save his. Maybe…maybe he'd get something for Julie.

Would she want him to? She was a girl, and she'd kissed him, so most likely yes. What would she want? He had a vague notion that girls liked three things: chocolate, flowers, and jewelry. Julie didn't have pierced ears, so she wouldn't want earrings. Maybe a necklace.

He didn't go to watch the pageant, even though he felt relatively well by then. He just couldn't stand to see Julie with another boy's arm around her shoulders, even if she said he was childish and smelled. Kenny's parents dropped Geena and Lincoln off at home afterward, because mother had to work that night. She probably wouldn't have gone to their pageant anyway. Gramma didn't.

Sometimes the boy wondered what his _paternal_ grandparents were like. He'd never met them, though as he had heard it they were still alive. Judging from what his father was like, he wasn't missing anything. Although, maybe his father being the way he was was why they didn't seem to want anything to do with him.

Or his children. Guilt by association again.

Oh well. A _priest_ thought he had a calling as a policeman. That had to say something good about him. One day he'd be able to say with perfect honesty that he didn't give a damn about all the people who didn't give a damn about him, because he would be proud of who he was. Their opinion of him wouldn't matter anymore.

As the old year wended to a close and the new year approached, he couldn't help wishing that that day would come sooner rather than later. He was absolutely desperate to grow up.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T+

**Spoilers: **Few, though most strongly from episode "High Noon-ish." May contain spoilers for "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are."

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**Tenderness On the Block**

Life found a groove, a "new normal." Circumstances weren't much altered. Despite the fact that he didn't get all the bed rest the doctor had doubtlessly intended for him to get, the boy's good health returned and the illness receded into memory. His weekend visits to Old Sonora resumed. Mother still worked long hours. Kenny was still his best friend. He still had to look after his siblings. Father remained in jail.

Really, only one thing changed, but it was a doozy. Every day, after school, the boy and Kenny and his siblings all gathered together…to walk Julie McCartney home.

As far as Julie was concerned, the others didn't even exist, and for the boy, for those two blocks, they had a tendency to become very…faint. Translucent, even. Like ghosts. Julie always kissed him on the cheek before she went inside her house, and in that moment he couldn't hear Geena's habitual cry of disgust or Kenny's jeering.

Despite all this kissing, in the boy's mind the relationship remained undefined. He didn't think of her as his "girlfriend," though Kenny was pleased to tease him about it. It was…too easy. He was not the kind of boy who lucked into love, he'd have to work at it. And at this point in his life, he didn't know how. Not that he didn't enjoy the kissing, and the sense that somebody thought he was kind of special, and not in the short bus sense. He just…didn't…quite…know what she wanted from him. Hank might have been able to help him figure it out, but…he didn't tell Hank. Talking about it would…jinx it. Maybe later, when things felt more…permanent.

Then came the day, shortly before his twelfth birthday, when Mary Murdock smiled at him on the playground and Julie pushed her and told her to keep away from _"my _boyfriend." Suddenly everything looked a lot more permanent and defined. Hearing her actually say those words, together, "my" and "boyfriend," hearing the _possessiveness_ in her voice when she said it, gave him all kinds of funny, thrummy feelings inside.

"What are _you_ grinning about?" Julie asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Is that what I am?" he asked, still grinning. _"Your _boyfriend?"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. _"Duh."_

"I'm a _boy, _Julie. These things don't occur to me naturally. I kinda have to be told."

"Well you've been told. So I'd better not catch you making eyes at any other girl."

His grin widened. "I really don't think you have to worry, Julie." Indeed, with her sparkling green eyes, her strawberry blonde hair, and her gently freckled white skin, he was scarcely aware that there _were_ other girls. Especially when she kissed him.

That day, when they walked her home from school and she kissed him on the cheek, he very shyly kissed her back. He ignored Geena's cry of disgust, Lincoln's hands clapped over his eyes, and Kenny's renewed jeering - "Julie and CJ sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"What is all of this?" someone said. "Did I just see a boy _kiss_ my baby sister?"

Julie's face blushed red. "Christy. I thought you had cheer practice."

"Cancelled. The head cheerleader had a 'thing.' What's going on, Julie Marie? Who is this?"

The girl who strode into their midst was a tall teenager, perhaps sixteen years of age, dressed in a St. Joseph's cheerleader's uniform. She had Julie's red-blonde hair and green eyes, and was every bit as pretty, in a much more mature way. Right now she had her arms crossed over her chest and her green eyes were fixed suspiciously on the boy.

"Christy, I told you about CJ," Julie said.

"Oh, so _this_ is the famous CJ," the girl said, nodding. "And who are all the hangers-on?"

"This is his friend Kenny Marshall, and his sister Geena and brother Lincoln," Julie said.

"Nice to meet you all," the girl said. She stepped up to the boy and favored him with intense scrutiny. "Well, you are kind of cute, aren't you? Those are the biggest, bluest eyes I've ever seen. I certainly hope you're a good guy. I don't like the idea of my baby sister kissing on some little rascal."

"I, um…I _try_ to a be a good guy, Ma'am."

She laughed. "I am _not_ a Ma'am. My name's Christina. If you're going to kiss my sister, you might as well call me Christy."

"Oh. Oh…kay."

"Julie, I'm not going to tell you not to be kissing on your little boyfriend here, but if Mom or Dad catches you, you know they'll have kittens," Christy said. "Exercise a little discretion, how 'bout it?"

"Are you gonna tell on me?" Julie asked.

Christy sighed. "No, I'm not going to tell. I don't see anything wrong with this, as long as he's a good guy. But the _minute_ he turns out not to be, _I Will End Him."_

The boy had been expecting to be warned off by some older relative or another. He might have been a bit more worried had it been an older _brother_. Female or not, Christy certainly _looked_ fierce enough to carry out her threats against him. Not that the boy was planning on doing anything that would make her need to.

Christy went into the house, with a final narrow glare at the boy, and Julie followed her in after another quick peck on the cheek.

Kenny nudged the boy in the ribs with his elbow. "Julie's sister is hot," he said, in a low voice.

"And she's sixteen if she's a day, Kenny. You're twelve. I don't think you've got a chance with her."

"I don't know, she could be the Mrs. Robinson type."

The boy couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. He pushed Kenny with both hands. "Come on, let's go home."

A few days later the boy turned twelve, which was signified by nothing except another ten dollars from Mom. Nice to have in hand, but not exactly celebratory. Not that the boy ever expected a birthday celebration.

Going forward from there, there was a certain…_tension_…in the family. Father would soon be eligible for early release, and despite the number of times he ended up in jail, he was very good at securing early release for himself. Nobody knew exactly when he'd get out, but nobody was looking forward to seeing him back.

Maybe they'd keep him in for the full sentence this time. It would be nice - two years without him. But the boy knew not to hope for it. Somehow, Sean Carlton Lassiter always managed to talk himself out of trouble, if not outright then at least before his sentence was up.

February gave way to March, and Lincoln's sixth birthday - no celebration, just a gift of five dollars. March became April, and April turned into May, and the school year wound down toward its close. And as the boy walked his siblings home on one of the last days of school, there was no thought in his mind that the world was about to come crashing back down on top of him.

Father was sitting on the front steps when they got there. Tall and slim, wearing the same clothes he got arrested in last year, his black hair salted with gray, his blue eyes piercing. They came to a complete stop almost a full block away, staring. Lincoln reached for the boy's hand and held on tight, tearing up.

"Come on, we knew it had to happen sooner or later," the boy said to his siblings. "Let's go."

"Are you going to stand there all damn day long or are you going to come here and let me the hell in?" father called from down the block.

"You don't have a key?" the boy called back.

"Your damn mother took my keys from my personal effects at the prison before they let me out," father said.

They approached, with much the caution of children approaching a wild animal. "Come on, hurry up. I'm aging, here," father griped.

"If only you'd drop dead," the boy muttered under his breath, and Kenny heard and smacked him on the arm.

"Dude, that's your dad you're talking about," he said, in a whisper.

"If he was _your_ dad, you'd say the same thing," the boy whispered back.

"Quit _jawing _and let me in," father said. "It's bad enough I had to hitchhike to get here, I have to sit here on the steps getting chilblains on my ass for hours waiting for someone to come home."

"Why didn't you just pick the lock? Seems like something you'd do," the boy said.

"Don't get smart-mouthed with me," father said.

"Isn't that kinda…dangerous?" Kenny asked, in a voice pitched for the boy's ears only.

"If he was worth a little respect I'd give it to him," the boy said, in a voice pitched to carry.

"CJ, if I talked to _my_ dad like that he'd smack me upside the head," Kenny said.

"My dad will do worse than that. I don't care. I just don't have much to say to a man who can't control his fists or his vices. A two-bit crook."

"Just let me in already," father said.

"I'd better get home, CJ," Kenny said. "You gonna be all right?"

"We'll be fine," the boy said. "Go on, don't worry about it."

Kenny crossed the street to his own house, and the boy climbed the front steps next to his father with his key out. Geena and Lincoln stayed well back. The boy unlocked the door. He didn't want to let his father in, but he didn't really have a choice.

If the children felt like they walked on eggshells around their mother, then it was more like walking on spikes and broken glass around their father. To call it a subtle torture was to be guilty of understatement - there was nothing subtle about it. There was nothing to do except knuckle down and wait for the next time he got himself arrested. It probably wouldn't be long.

Spring turned into summer, and summer wended its way into fall and thence to winter, not that there was much difference in the seasons in Santa Barbara. They "celebrated" Christmas and then the New Year, and shortly before the boy's thirteenth birthday they discovered something pretty major.

Mother was pregnant.

On the one hand, this was horrifying. If any family didn't need more children. On the other hand…

No, there was no other hand. This was just horrifying.

Mother's unpleasantness increased through bouts of morning sickness, but eventually that passed. Not that her mood improved much. She wasn't looking forward to becoming a mother again. Father wasn't happy about it, either. As far as the boy was concerned, it was one more approaching problem. One more sibling to take care of, more vulnerable than any of them. As mother's due date approached he felt more and more…oppressed. He saw nothing good in this, nothing good at all.

And then came August. Technically the baby's due date was in early September, but that didn't mean much. Father Murphy talked to the boy about the impending arrival.

"I honestly don't know why Mom and Dad keep having kids," he said. "It's not like they like 'em much."

"Well, me lad, I hate to say it, but most likely the sole reason they keep having children is…they're Catholic," Father Murphy said.

"Forgive me, Father, but I can't help thinking that's a stupid reason to have kids."

"Aye, lad. I'm afraid, in this case, you may be right."

Mother went into labor on the morning of the thirty-first. They took her to Santa Barbara General. The doctors asked father if he wanted to be in the delivery room when the baby was born. They'd never asked that before.

"Why the hell would I want to see that?" father said.

"I'll go in," the boy said. The nurse laughed.

"That's no place for a little boy," she said.

"My dad's not going to do it," he said.

"Let the kid go in. That should teach him not to have sex," father said.

"No no no. We really can't do that."

It was a few hours in the waiting room, but eventually the nurse came out and told them that the baby was born. "She's down in the viewing room, if you want to go see her."

"It's a girl?" the boy asked.

"You've got a little sister," the nurse said. "Your mother named her Lauren Louise."

"Lauren Louise Lassiter. That's a lotta Ls."

"You want to see her?"

"Sure."

"Right this way."

The nurse led them to the window set in the wall leading into the nursery. "Which one is ours?" the boy asked, looking in at the little bundles that all looked the same to him.

"Third bassinet in the second row," the nurse said.

They looked in and saw the tiny red-faced, squalling baby.

"Looks pissed. Definitely a Lassiter," the boy said.

"She wants to be fed. You want to do it, big brother?"

"I suppose."

"Go into your mother's room and I'll bring her by with a bottle."

In just a few minutes he was installed in his mother's hospital room with a baby in his arms and a bottle in his hand. The baby still cried, and he talked to her, trying to calm her down.

"Yup. Definitely a Lassiter," he said, as the baby let out a howl. "Come on, Lulu, drink up. You know what? You are kinda cute. For a red-faced little bundle of a poop-machine."

He sighed. He was holding the biggest responsibility he was likely to ever undertake, but…well…it wasn't all bad. She was pretty cute.

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**A/N: **Oh, this chapter was hard to write, and I'm not really happy with it. Mostly because I had to jump so much time. I really do much better with a concise timeline. But also because I've been stressed out. My older sister wants to move back to Iowa from Arizona, where she's lived for the past eleven years or so, and she wants to move in with _me. _Short-term, 'til she gets a job, but…well…my sister is Shawn Spencer without the redeeming characteristics. She's manipulative, hyperactive, lies, steals from me…I'm not looking to become Gus. Moreover, she has FIVE KIDS, three of which still live at home. I do not care for kids in large doses. But she is my sister. This may be a family duty, but it could not be good: I'm autistic, and I do not handle emotional upsets well, and my sister is one big walking emotional upset.

But I had some good news today. My landlord, who happens to be my big brother, says he won't let her move in. The house is too small (it is, it really is). I have never loved my big brother more. If he maintains, I'm out of the woods. Of course, my sister is now pissed off at me for telling him her plans. But it's his house, so how could I really do otherwise? I'm kind of hoping sis will be pissed off enough to rethink this whole idea of moving back to Iowa. This state's not big enough for the two of us.


End file.
